Permanent link to MTA daily media news

Happy Mother’s Day!

Anti-Hillary Birthday card still on super market shelves (by NewHampster at Partizane)
WTF? I saw this back during the primary but one assumes things like this and the Hillary Nutcracker* would be gone by now. I was getting a birthday card for my 92 year old dad when this card just jumped off the shelf. Nearly a year since she withdrew and American Greetings and Shaw’s see fit to keep this crap on the shelf…

I hope folks … write the people in charge.
American Greetings Consumer Relations consumer.relations@amgreetings.com
Shaw’s Super Markets feedback@shaws.com

On the other hand, Bill Clinton is doing something constructive for Mother’s Day:
A Mother’s Day Message from President Clinton
In honor of Mother’s Day, President Clinton and two moms who are leading the fight against childhood obesity in their own communities offer tips on what you can do in your local schools to help kids lead healthier lives.
Click through to watch the video.

WHCA dinner features jabs at Obama’s use of teleprompters, Michael Steele, and John Boehner’s tan. (Think Progress)
Tonight was the annual White House Correspondents’ Associaton dinner in Washington, D.C. During his speech, President Obama made fun of his reputation for using teleprompters and poked at House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH), Fox News (Glenn Beck could be spotted pumping his fists), and RNC chairman Michael Steele. As the comedian this year, Wanda Sykes made jokes that were considerably more controversial than the comedians from the past couple years — about Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AK) and abstinence, Rush Limbaugh’s kidneys failing, and how Keith Olbermann should waterboard Sean Hannity.
Oh, no, President Obama! Don’t mention the TELEPROMPTERS! You’re not allowed to make fun of them! Click through to watch the video highlights.

Don’t Quit Your Job if you can Help It! (by dakinikat at The Confluence)
April’s employment data was released [Friday].  We now stand at an 8.9% unemployment rate which represents a 26 year high.  Every one appears to be spinning away the bright side of over 5[3]9,000 lost  jobs with the refrain that at least it’s not as bad as it was in January… [This graph] from the NY Times as presented by its blog Economix … compares the current recession to previous recessions.  As you can see, we’re still straight off the cliff at this point.

Actual U.S. Unemployment: 15.8% (Economy Watch, Washington Post)
This morning’s news that U.S. unemployment has hit 13.7 million, pushing the rate to 8.9 percent, tells only half the story of this recession. The total number of Americans who are not working full-time but ought to be is actually about 22 million, or 15.8 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics… The number was 8.7 percent in December 2007, when the current recession began. That means the number of the unofficially unemployed has shot up 7.1 percentage points since then. By comparison, the official unemployment rate has risen 3.9 percentage points since December 2007. This suggests that a greater percentage of people are becoming disenfranchised from the workforce than are getting laid off.

Nevertheless,
American Optimism Grows (Political Wire)
A new McClatchy/Ipsos poll finds the public mood “appears to be lightening,” with 55% of Americans saying they think the country is moving in the right direction and only 38% saying it’s on the wrong track. Just a month ago, the right track/wrong track margin was 45% to 48%. In addition, President Obama remains highly popular, with 65% of Americans approving of how he’s handling his job and 31% disapproving.

But,
World’s Happiest Places (Yahoo Travel, thanks to Lambert at Corrente)
Where in the world do people feel most content with their lives? According to a new report released by the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development, … Denmark, Finland and the Netherlands rated at the top of the list, ranking first, second and third, respectively. Outside Europe, New Zealand and Canada landed at Nos. 8 and 6, respectively. The United States did not crack the top 10. Switzerland placed seventh and Belgium placed tenth.
No, wait! They’re are all gol-danged SOSHULISTS in them thar countries! Soshulists cain’t be HAPPY, can they??!!

Under Restructuring, GM To Build More Cars Overseas (Washington Post, thanks to Tengrain at Mock, Paper, Scissors)
The U.S. government is pouring billions into General Motors in hopes of reviving the domestic economy, but when the automaker completes its restructuring plan, many of the company’s new jobs will be filled by workers overseas.
We’re lending them money to move jobs offshore?

Losing Your Job: A Blow to Your Health Too (Time)
Kate Strully, a sociologist at State University of New York in Albany[, in] her new study published in the journal Demography, Strully analyzed a variety of job loss situations — including being fired or laid off or losing a job after the entire company shut down — and found that job loss may indeed trigger serious physical and physiological illness… More intriguing was the long-term effect job loss appeared to have. Even if some of these people found new jobs soon after losing their first one, they were more likely to retain the legacy of poor health from having once been unemployed.

So may we please have affordable health care?
Baucus v. Democracy (by David Swanson at After Downing Street, thanks to Susie at Suburban Guerilla)
I can’t recall a better corporate news video segment in at least the past decade than the story that Ed Schultz [aired Friday] on MSNBC in which he interviews Margaret Flowers of Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP) and Senator Debbie Stabenow on the topic of healthcare reform…

Ed goes after the health insurance companies, the pharmaceutical companies, and the HMOs. He plays video of activist Kevin Zeese speaking up at the recent Senate Finance Committee hearing and being arrested. He explains perfectly what single-payer healthcare is… And he denounces the anti-democratic exclusion of single-payer advocates by Committee Chairman Max Baucus.

And then Ed brings on Margaret Flowers who absolutely nails every question he asks, and he asks the right questions. Flowers lists the polls showing that over 60 percent of Americans and 60 percent of physicians want single-payer, explains that PNHP has 16,000 members and is part of the Leadership Conference for Guaranteed Healthcare which has 20 million members. Flowers points out that the next senate hearing is on March 12th and that advocates are asking for at least one supporter of single-payer to be included…

After Flowers, Senator Stabenow comes on to give a perfect representation of an evasive, dishonest, sleazy senator, claiming not to know why single-payer advocates have been excluded, condescendingly encouraging them to keep shouting even though her gang won’t listen, and pretending that “lots of folks” in her state want to keep the insurance they have — as if trading it for completely comprehensive and completely free coverage (paid in taxes by businesses) would constitute some sort of a loss, would have a down side…

Schultz then appeals to President Obama to “nudge” Senator Baucus… “Baucus got $183,000 from health insurance companies and $229,000 from drug companies,” Schultz concludes. “May I remind you: they were at the table.”
Here’s a link to the video. My comment: Ed Schultz was one of the biggest Obama supporters during the primary, even though Obama did not support single payer. Ed helped spread hate against Hillary Clinton, who did support single payer. An acknowledgment, if not an apology, might be in order.

Sources: Senators weigh 3 government health plans (AP, thanks to Lambert at Corrente)
Senators are considering three different designs for a new government health insurance plan that middle-income Americans could buy into for the first time, congressional officials said Friday… The three approaches being discussed are:
_Create a plan that resembles Medicare, administered by the Health and Human Services department.
_Adopt a Medicare-like plan, but pick an outside party to run it. That way government officials would not directly control the day-to-day operations.
_Leave it up to individual states to set up a public insurance plan for their residents…

Senators on the Finance Committee will consider the proposals during a closed-door session scheduled for late next week. [Emphasis added.]

Ted Kennedy Abandons Liberals on Health Care Reform (Walker Report, thanks to Lambert at Corrente)
This is probably the worst sign yet for the public health insurance plan. Ted Kennedy has abandoned liberals on the issue of his career. On his senate website, Ted Kennedy no longer publicly supports providing all Americans with the choice of a public health insurance option. He continues the trend started by the Obama administration of trying to whitewash over support for a public plan. Only a week ago, Ted Kennedy’s website still promoted giving all Americans the choice of signing up for Medicare. Now, under the issue of “health care” there is no longer any reference to offering people the choice of a public health insurance plan.

I highly respect Ted Kennedy and his long career of fighting for what he believes in. But now is the time for health care reform. Important health care reform legislation is being written as we speak. To see Kennedy quietly abandon a core principle of the progressive agenda is very disappointing.

Banks Won Concessions on Tests (Wall Street Journal)
The Federal Reserve significantly scaled back the size of the capital hole facing some of the nation’s biggest banks shortly before concluding its stress tests, following two weeks of intense bargaining. In addition, according to bank and government officials, the Fed used a different measurement of bank-capital levels than analysts and investors had been expecting, resulting in much smaller capital deficits.

The overall reaction to the stress tests, announced Thursday, has been generally positive. But the haggling between the government and the banks shows the sometimes-tense nature of the negotiations that occurred before the final results were made public. Government officials defended their handling of the stress tests, saying they were responsive to industry feedback while maintaining the tests’ rigor.

Details on Banks’ Victory Over Treasury in Stress Tests Emerge (by Yves Smith at Naked Capitalism)
It was bad enough that the Treasury came up with an adverse case that is hardly a worse case scenario. As we pointed out, it is considerably more optimistic, both in duration and intensity of the downturn, than is typical for serious financial crises. And the earlier comparables did not take place in the context of a global downturn, which meant the afflicted countries got a substantial boost from depreciating their currencies and rising an export boom. Pursuing that strategy aggressively risks competitive devaluations and worse, overt protectionism. a negative sum game.

The tests also did not sufficiently allow for the just-started commercial real estate downdraft, nor did they probe the exposures most subject to sudden decay, namely, complex securities and derivative exposures. Those are big risk factors at the firms with large credit trading operations namely the former investments banks (Merrill, now part of Bank of America, Morgan Stanley, Goldman) plus the banks that have made successful entree into the big leagues, Citi and JP Morgan. And there was no examination of the risk management models and practices, nor sampling of the underlying loan books….

This is the legacy of regulators who are so subject to what Willem Buiter’s “cognitive regulatory capture” that the believe the Wall Street party line, that they are the best and the brightest, and therefore are better judges of how to manage their affairs than any outsider. Despite ample evidence to the contrary, plus the danger of giving hungry organizations a taxpayer backstop, the Treasury has shown a predictable lack of resolve, completely in keeping with its industry-favoring posture.
Click through for much, much more.

The Other Stress Test (For Bankers) (by Simon Johnson at The Baseline Scenario)
Most interesting, of course, is how bankers think. They regard themselves as entitled to outsized compensation that encourages excessive risk taking. They think that insider trading rules apply to other people. And they are convinced that only they – and their friends – are capable of running government in boom or bust (or in ways that boom leads to bust, at which time you buy low and then recover through large implicit support from the government.)…

Really what we have seen over the past two years … is a stress test of our bankers.  If you think they basically did fine, then we can go about our business with essentially the same financial system that has developed in the last couple of decades. If you have concerns about how they behaved and the potential consequences of such behavior down the road, then we need to talk further.  The banks passed their stress tests, in part because these were designed by bankers and people friendly to bankers (we could also think about how our regulators have done over the past two years).  But are the bankers passing their stress tests?

New York Fed Chairman Stephen Friedman resigns (AP)
Stephen Friedman, chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s board of directors, has resigned effectively immediately, the bank announced Thursday.

Friedman Denies Having Inside Information from Fed (Deal Book, New York Times)
Stephen J. Friedman, who abruptly resigned as chairman of the New York Federal Reserve board on Thursday, spoke about the situation at Goldman Sachs ‘ annual meeting on Friday morning. “I followed the rules, as I always have,” said Mr. Friedman, a director on Goldman’s board and formerly head of the company. Mr. Friedman also said he did not have access to inside information on Goldman from the Fed. “That’s just a bright, red line,” he said, adding that he did not cross it.
If he followed the rules, there is something seriously wrong with the RULES!

Friday: Free Milk and a Cow- Reprise ( by riverdaughter at The Confluence)
The stress tests are finished and the verdicts are in:  The Bankers Have Won… In short, the Change! that we all Hoped for last year is that the Democratic party is now firmly in the hands of the Republicans.  Well, that’s what it looks like to me..

I was watching Frost/Nixon the other night and one of the characters, a research assistant, tries to explain to Frost why it was so important to nail Nixon publicly.  It was because he  committed constitutional crimes and letting him get away with it with a pardon would come back to haunt us in the future.  And it did.  We don’t hold anyone responsible anymore for anything.  Nixon got away with Watergate, Reagan and Bush with Iran/Contra, Bush II with torture.  We let the Savings and Loan crisis happen and didn’t learn a thing from it.  We watched the debacle at Enron and Tyco and clicked our tongues in sympathy for the employees that lost everything.  But the finance industry at large has adopted Enron’s Wild West risktaking and accounting practices.  And now, no one will be held accountable but the taxpayers for the trillions of dollars lost.

It didn’t have to be like this.  We could have gotten off the emotional roller coaster last year when there was time.  We could have asked the party what we were going to get in exchange for nominating this neophyte with the pockets overflowing with cash.  We could have set conditions for his nomination, raised a ruckus when our votes were callously thrown away.  We could have held the party accountable for the decisions it was intending to make.  We tried.  We were called racists.

This is what happens when you don’t ask for anything in return for your vote.  Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?

AP sources: Obama wants Fed to be finance supercop (AP)
The Federal Reserve could become the supercop for “too big to fail” companies capable of causing another financial meltdown under a proposal being seriously considered by the White House.

Now that we’ve got too-big-to-fail banks, let’s have a too-big-to-fail regulator (by lambert at Corrente)
Gad: “…The Federal Reserve could become the supercop for “too big to fail” companies capable of causing another financial meltdown under a proposal being seriously considered by the White House…” Don’t break up the banksters — like, say, Teddy Roosevelt would have. No, no, add a layer of regulation especially for them, which — since they’re running are running the country now, as both Johnson and Krugman have observed — the banksters will immediately capture and subvert. I’m shocked.

White House Lays Groundwork For Management Changes At Struggling Banks (by Sam Stein at the Huffington Post)
In addition to unveiling the results of the stress tests on Thursday, the Federal Reserve made public the outlines and regulations for those banks that would need additional capital in order to remain solvent… Tucked into a Joint Statement by the Treasury, Fed and FDIC is the declaration that “as part of the 30-day planning process, firms will need to review their existing management and Board in order to assure that the leadership of the firm has sufficient expertise and ability to manage the risks presented by the current economic environment and maintain balance sheet capacity sufficient to continue prudent lending to meet the credit needs of the economy.”

Obama makes push for credit card legislation (AP)
Putting himself on the side of fuming consumers, President Barack Obama is pushing Congress to send him legislation by Memorial Day that would put a tighter rein on the credit card industry… “I’m calling on Congress … to pass a credit card reform bill that protects American consumers so that I can sign it into law by Memorial Day,” Obama said. “There is no time for delay. We need a durable and successful flow of credit in our economy, but we can’t tolerate profits that depend upon misleading working families. Those days are over.”… The banking community is fighting back. Credit-card executives maintain that new restrictions could backfire on consumers, making it harder for banks to offer credit or put credit out of reach for many borrowers.

List Says Top Democrats Were Briefed on Interrogations (New York Times)
Congressional Republicans on Friday accused Democrats of full complicity in the approval of the Bush administration’s brutal interrogations, citing a new accounting that shows briefings for some top Democrats on waterboarding and other harsh methods starting in 2002. The new chart of briefings, prepared by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, was the first full listing of briefings to members of Congress and their aides. It appears to call into question the longstanding assertion of Speaker Nancy Pelosi that she was never told that waterboarding and other methods were actually used, only that the Central Intelligence Agency believed they were legal and could be used…

The chart shows that in addition to [House Speaker Nancy] Pelosi, Democrats briefed on the methods included former Senator Bob Graham of Florida in 2002 and Senator John D. Rockefeller IV of West Virginia and Representative Jane Harman of California in 2003.

Waterboarding Not Discussed At CIA Briefings, Congressional Aide Says (by Sam Stein at the Huffington Post)
A senior aide to another member of Congress briefed by the CIA around the same time as Speaker Nancy Pelosi tells the Huffington Post that the use of waterboarding was never mentioned at those briefings.

Hoekstra’s Office: He’s Seen Documents That Prove Pelosi Was Briefed On Waterboarding (by Greg Sargent at The Plum Line)
GOP Rep. Pete Hoekstra is upping the stakes of the torture fight in response to Nancy Pelosi’s claims that she wasn’t briefed on the use of waterboarding. His office tells me that he’s seen documents that will prove this isn’t true.

CIA: Notes On Pelosi Meeting Don’t Specify Briefing On Waterboarding (by Greg Sargent at The Plum Line)
None of the notes and memos that the CIA is aware of about the briefing Nancy Pelosi got on torture specified that she’d been briefed on the use of waterboarding, a CIA spokesperson confirms to me. In the newly-released documents detailing the torture briefings given to members of Congress, the portion describing Pelosi’s single briefing says she was told about the use of enhanced interrogation techniques in general, but doesn’t specify whether she was told about the use of waterboarding. That was specified about the briefings given to other Dems.

I asked CIA spokesperson Paul Gimigliano why. His answer: Because the notes and memos on the Pelosi meeting that form the basis for the docs didn’t allow them to go that far, meaning that they didn’t specify that she’d been briefed on waterboarding in particular.

CIA Admits That Info About Torture Briefings For Dems May Not Be Accurate (by Greg Sargent at The Plum Line)
[T]he docs [mentioned above] were accompanied by a letter from CIA chief Leon Panetta that appears to suggest the CIA can’t promise that the info is right. The letter was sent along with the documents to GOP Rep Pete Hoekstra, a leading critic of Dems on torture, and Dem Rep Silvestre Reyes, the chairman of the intelligence committee… [T]his letter says that the info about briefings is taken from notes based on the “best recollections” of those who were there, adding: “In the end, you and the Committee will have to determine whether this information is an accurate summary of what actually happened.”
Danps at Corrente says,

“Meeting notes seem to me to be fairly uncontroversial things. It certainly is rare for contemporaneous notes of one to spark debate. The usual procedure is basically: Have someone scribble down the main points people are making during the meeting, then afterwards type them up and send them out. Maybe something needs to be sharpened or modified in some way, but according to the Times ‘Mr. Fredman says the writer of the 2002 memo misconstrued enough of his points that the memo is unreliable.’ That gets my antenna up. While I suppose it is possible for someone to get huge swaths of a meeting fundamentally wrong it does not seem very likely. It sounds more like a somewhat desperate and implausible attempt to rewrite history.”

The Hill , please define “considers holding hearings” (by Eric Boehlert at County Fair, Media Matters for America)
It’s from the Friday headline: “Hoekstra considers hearings on Pelosi, interrogations”… So, according to The Hill headline, Hoekstra, the ranking the top Republican on the House Intelligence committee, might call hearings. He’s considering it at the very least. That’s interesting, but last time we checked Republicans were in the minority and don’t have the power to hold hearings.
This tactic was used repeatedly during the Clinton years, if you’ll recall. Bill and/or Hillary were always just on the verge of being hauled in front of a committee or a judge or something. It worked once to degrade the reputations of top Democrats, and it may work again.

Limbaugh fill-in Davis: If we waterboard “our own guys, isn’t that Exhibit A that it ain’t torture” (video at County Fair, Media Matters for America)

Limbaugh fill-in Davis: “[I]f we were to waterboard Chris Dodd…let me just hold that image in my head for one precious moment…” (video at County Fair, Media Matters for America)

Limbaugh fill-in Davis reads Feherty’s comments about “any U.S. soldier” killing Pelosi and Reid, says “his words speak enormous volumes” (video at County Fair, Media Matters for America)

Coulter suggests submitting detainees to “what liberals consider one of our precious constitutional rights, a partial birth abortion” (video at County Fair, Media Matters for America)

Obama Set to Revive Military Commissions (Washington Post)
The Obama administration is preparing to revive the system of military commissions established at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, under new rules that would offer terrorism suspects greater legal protections, government officials said. The rules would block the use of evidence obtained from coercive interrogations, tighten the admissibility of hearsay testimony and allow detainees greater freedom to choose their attorneys, said the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.
Another “anonymous” tip. Why on earth are they continuing to do that? And if all these concessions have been made, why not try them in regular courts? There’s just something fishy about it.

Aide who approved Air Force One flyover in New York resigns (The Guardian, U.K.)
Barack Obama bowed to the loss of one of his senior aides today when he accepted the resignation of the official who had approved the publicity shoot of Air Force One over lower Manhattan that turned into a publicity disaster. Louis Caldera, who headed the White House Military Office, handed in his resignation to coincide with the completion of an internal inquiry into the flight fiasco. Caldera, a former secretary of the US army under Bill Clinton, featured prominently in the seven-page inquiry report produced by Jim Messina, the White House deputy chief of staff.

Pentagon’s Black Budget Grows to More Than $50 Billion‎ (Danger Room, Wired)
The Pentagon wants to spend just over $50 billion on classified programs next year, newly-released Defense Department budget documents reveal. “That’s the largest-ever sum,” according to Aviation Week’s Bill Sweetman, a longtime black-budget seer — a three percent increase over last year’s total. It makes the Pentagon’s secret operations, including the intelligence budgets nested inside, “roughly equal in magnitude to the entire defense budgets of the UK, France or Japan,” Sweetman adds. All in all, about seven and a half percent of the Defense Department’s total spending is now classified.

General Sees a Longer Stay in Iraq Cities for U.S. Troops (New York Times)
The top American general in Iraq said Friday that one-fifth of American combat troops would stay behind in Iraqi cities even after the June 30 deadline that the United States and Iraq had set for the departure.
We’ve been building permanent bases in Iraq. We’ll have troops there for many years.

Blowback in the SCOTUS Wars, Part II (by Jake Tapper at Political Punch, ABC News)
The New Republic’s Jeffrey Rosen respond[ed] to criticism of his piece on Judge Sonia Sotomayor… Noting that his piece prompted an “energetic response in the blogosphere,” Rosen says the headline of his original story, ”The Case Against Sotomayor,” wasn’t quite right. The story was not intended to be the case against her, but rather “to convey questions about her judicial temperament that sources had expressed to me in the preceding weeks.”

Scalia v. Sotomayor: The Use of Gender-Coded Language to Evaluate a Judge’s “Temperament”  (by Darren Lenard Hutchinson at Dissenting Justice)
In an effort to defend his harsh “evaluation” of Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s temperament, Jeffrey Rosen cites the Almanac of the Federal Judiciary. The AFJ, published by Aspen Press, contains judicial biographies and summaries of attorney comments regarding individual judges. Some critics have argued that AFJ lawyer comments can reflect racial and gender biases. I agree… A persistent and ubiquitous gender stereotype portrays smart and aggressive women as domineering, mean, nasty bitches. This stereotype explains much of the negative treatment that Hillary Clinton received during her presidential campaign…

With respect to lawyers, statistics show great disparities that correlate with gender. Although women are just under 1/2 of the summer associates and associates at law firms, they are just 17% of partners. Women hold roughly 1/4 of federal judgeships, and only one woman sits on the Supreme Court. Considering the impact of race and gender status together reveals even greater disparities. Women of color are virtually unrepresented as partners in the nation’s law firms and as members of the judiciary. This is the context in which Sonia Sotomayor and all other female lawyers of color exist.

Dems already fighting Obama’s budget cuts (by Alex Koppelman at the War Room, Salon)
 Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., for instance, wants the money from one of the biggest cuts — $400 million that helps states with the cost of detaining illegal immigrants — restored. Rep. Maurice Hinchey, D-N.Y., is opposing one of the most high-profile of the cuts, the decision not to take delivery on a new presidential helicopter, which the president has rejected and which cost over $800 million last year. Of course, it also provides hundreds of jobs in Hinchey’s district.

FactCheck posts for the week ending May 8, 2009

Q: Has a “smoking gun” been found to prove Obama was not born a U.S. citizen? Did he attend Occidental college on a scholarship for foreign students?
A: This chain email is a transparent April Fool’s Day hoax. It fabricates an AP news story about an non-existent group, and makes false claims about Obama and the Fulbright program.

Q: Was H.R. 1388 passed “behind our backs”?
A: This latest e-rumor is a double-header. It recycles one false claim and alludes to another. We’ve debunked both before.

What’s in a Number?
Putting in perspective President Obama’s plan to cut budget spending by $100 million.

Did Obama Misquote Churchill?
So far no proof has surfaced that Churchill actually did say “we don’t torture.”

The Kindle’s Obama Problem (Political Wire)
The New York Times finds the first major problem with the new Kindle: Its electronic “voice” mispronounces two important words that show up often in the pages of newspapers: “Barack” (the device rhymes it with “black”) and “Obama” (sounds like “Alabama“).
It’s a racist machine. Clearly.