The Big Casino Never Closes

Little hey, little ho, little high, little low, when you know which number's coming up on the wheel ahead of time, you can always beat the house.

Currency dealers in London gave information about client orders to day traders who then made bets on their behalf, sidestepping restrictions on personal trading, three people with knowledge of the practice said.

Bank employees used their mobile phones and instant-messages to transmit details of impending orders to individuals working from rented trading desks in offices on the outskirts of the U.K. capital, according to three traders who said they had witnessed the practice over a period of years. The day traders then made bets on the direction of currencies and any profit was later divvied up in cash, said two of the people, who asked not to be identified because the agreements are private.

The practice shows the extent to which dealers would go to circumvent rules designed to stop them from profiting at the expense of clients, and how alleged wrongdoing in the foreign-exchange market stretched beyond the trading floors of London’s financial district to unregulated day traders in Essex and Kent.

“It’s almost impossible for banks to have a lid on it –- unless they find a way of controlling all forms of communication out of the trading floor,” said Tom Kirchmaier, a fellow in the financial-markets group at the London School of Economics.

Free money comes out of nowhere because of the magic of unfettered capitalism.  Meanwhile, we'll have to make more austerity cuts because money doesn't come out of nowhere, you know.  I know the currency desk is about to make a big trade, I text you before it happens, you make the buy or sell move to take advantage of the trade, then we split the take.  The Big Casino never closes, folks.  Everyone in there's a winner!

Except all the rest of us on the outside.  We're too busy playing the Hunger Games.

StupidiNews!

• The deal worked out by Secretary John Kerry and Afghan President Karzai to keep US non-combat troops in Afghanistan now must pass muster with the country's council of tribal elders, the loya jirga.
• Australia's Federal Police and Reserve Bank websites have come under hacker attack, Indonesian hacktivists are suspected as they continue to protest Canberra spying on its island neighbor.
• Congress honored 33 Native American tribes this week with the Congressional Gold Medal for saving American troops with "code talker" services in WWI and WWII.
• A number of Senate Republicans have agreed to back Fed Chair nominee Janet Yellen, giving her enough votes to overcome a 60-vote filibuster by Tea Party Republicans.
• Nearly 15 years after being purchased by AOL, storied mp3 player Winamp is being shut down in December amid accusations of mismanagement.

Last Call For Anti-Choicers In Albuquerque

As expected, the vote on a municipal ban on abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy in Albuquerque has gone down in flames.

Voters in Albuquerque defeated a proposal on Tuesday that would have outlawed most late-term abortions in New Mexico's largest city in the first test of such a measure on a municipal ballot in the United States.

The measure, which would have barred doctors within city limits from performing abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy, unless a mother's life was in danger, was rejected 55 percent to 45 percent.

Abortion rights advocates hailed the outcome as a victory against out-of-state anti-abortion activists seen as spear-heading an initiative.

Supporters of the measure predicted that similar proposals would gain ground in other cities and states across the country.

Except you know, where the anti-choicers try to turn it into no abortion ever.

The proposed 20-week cutoff on abortions in the Albuquerque measure allowed for few of the exemptions permitted in most late-term abortion bans enacted in other states in recent years. It contained no exceptions for victims of rape or incest, and would have waived the ban only to save a mother's life or if continuing her pregnancy risked "substantial and irreversible physical impairment of a major bodily function."

Lost by 10 points.  So what now, Team Freedom Unless You're Talking About Vaginas?

 

Will The Honey Badger Finally Push The Button?

Sen. Harry Reid has barreled forward without giving too much of a damn about the Republican Party's tender feelings, but he's been skittish to make any major changes to the Senate's filibuster rules.  That is until the Republicans blocked all three DC Circuit Court federal judges nominated this month for no reason other than President Obama was doing it.  Apparently, this is enough of a violation of the "gentleman's agreement" for Honey Badger Harry to push the Big Red Button.  Greg Sargent:

Senator Harry Reid appears set to go nuclear — before Thanksgiving. 

With Senate Republicans blocking a third Obama nomination to the powerful D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, a senior Senate Democratic leadership aide tells me Reid is now all but certain to move to change the Senate rules by simple majority — doing away with the filibuster on executive and judicial nominations, with the exception of the Supreme Court – as early as this week. 

At a presser today, Reid told reporters he was taking another look at rules reform, but didn’t give a timeline. The senior leadership aide goes further, saying it’s hard to envision circumstances under which Reid doesn’t act.

“Reid has become personally invested in the idea that Dems have no choice other than to change the rules if the Senate is going to remain a viable and functioning institution,” the aide says. That’s a long journey from where Reid was only 10 months ago, when he agreed to a toothless filibuster reform deal out of a real reluctance to change the rules by simple majority. 

Asked to explain the evolution, the aide said: “It’s been a long process. But this is the only thing we can do to keep the Senate performing its basic duties.”

If this finally is the last straw, the Republicans broke that particular bunch over and over again.  No Senate in history has used the filibuster to block nominations as much as the GOP has to block President Obama's picks for federal positions.

The difference is Republicans are making the argument not that the nominees are bad, but that President Obama doesn't have the right to make nominations period, because it would "change" the makeup of a federal court to favor the President's party.

Reid has concluded Senate Republicans have no plausible way of retreating from the position they’ve adopted in this latest Senate rules standoff, the aide says. Republicans have argued that in pushing nominations, Obama is “packing” the court, and have insisted that Obama is trying to tilt the court’s ideological balance in a Democratic direction — which is to say that the Republican objection isn’t to the nominees Obama has chosen, but to the fact that he’s trying to nominate anyone at all. 

Reid believes that, having defined their position this way, Republicans have no plausible route out of the standoff other than total capitulation on the core principle they have articulated, which would be a “pretty dramatic reversal,” the aide continues. 

“They’ve boxed themselves in — their position allows them no leeway,” the aide says, in characterizing Reid’s thinking. “This is not a trumped up argument about the qualification of a nominee. They are saying, `we don’t want any nominees.’”

So once again we're in a situation where 43 other Presidents could do things that apparently this President should not be allowed to do.  One has to then ask "well what's different about President Obama?"

What indeed, Republicans?

Push the button, Harry.

La Coke-a Nose-tra

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why drug testing welfare recipients is utter nonsense.

In September, Rep. Trey Radel voted for Republican legislation that would allow states to make food stamp recipients pee in cups to prove they're not on drugs. In October, police busted the Florida Republican on a charge of cocaine possession. 

“It’s really interesting it came on the heels of Republicans voting on everyone who had access to food stamps get drug tested," House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) told BuzzFeed Tuesday. "It’s like, what?” 

The House over the summer approved an amendment by Rep. Richard Hudson (R-N.C.) that would let states drug test people on food stamps. The amendment passed by voice vote, meaning members' individual yeas and nays were not recorded. Radel later voted in favor of a broader food stamps bill that included Hudson's measure. 

In support of his drug testing legislation, Hudson cited the many state legislatures around the country that had considered similar requirements for other means-tested programs in recent years. 

"This is a clear and obvious problem in our communities as nearly 30 states have introduced legislation to drug test for welfare programs," Hudson said. "We have a moral obligation to equip the states with the tools they need to discourage the use of illegal drugs."

But not, of course, the people who make the laws to test welfare recipients for drugs.  Because welfare recipients, unlike members of Congress, have so much spare cash lying around for drugs.  But let's continue to tell ourselves those people are the problem, and not Republicans in Congress doing coke.

Of course, now we're all supposed to feel sorry for the rich right-wing broadcaster turned Congressman, earning $174,000 a year plus his multi-million dollar media relations company in Florida.  But you won't see him lose that salary or his company over this.  He'll get a slap on the wrist, and hell, probably get more famous for "beating addiction". So he can stay in Congress and vote to make sure that lesser plebes don't get that nice treatment program he'll get.

Nice job if you can get it.

StupidiNews!

• Virginia State Sen. Creigh Deeds remains hospitalized after being stabbed multiple times in an altercation with his son Gus, who apparently shot and killed himself after the fight Tuesday morning.
• Mayor Bloomberg has signed a bill into law that would raise the age needed to purchase tobacco products to 21 within NYC limits.
• Thousands of homeowners could get mortgage relief under a $13 billion federal settlement reached with banking giant JP Morgan Chase Tuesday over subprime mortgages.
• A 5-4 Supreme Court decision will allows Texas's controversial anti-abortion laws to stay in effect as at least a dozen clinics in the state remain closed over the law's hospital admitting privileges clause.
• Hackers have uncovered 42 million account passwords for Australian dating website company Cupid Media, which could expose more vulnerabilities if the passwords are used on other sites.

Last Call For Concern Trolling 101

Today's master class in Concern Trolling is brought to you by House Republican Lamar Smith of Texas:

“President Obama has a responsibility to ensure that the personal and financial data collected as part of Obamacare is secure. It is clear that is not the case today. In their haste to launch the Healthcare.gov website, it appears the Obama administration cut corners that leave the site open to hackers and other online criminals.  As a result, the personal information that has already been entered into Healthcare.gov is vulnerable to identity thieves.  We already know of at least 16 attempts to hack into the system.  But we can assume that many more security breaches have not been reported. 

“Given the testimony we have heard today, there is only one reasonable course of action. Mr. President, take down this website.”

Oh well played, Mr. Smith.  Let's not forget of course that those hacker attacks were both perpetrated by right-wing, anti-Obama hacktivists and unsuccessful because the site's security is solid.  But the "we can assume that many more security breaches have not been reported" is classic asshole.

And of course, when President Obama doesn't "take down this website" he'll get scolded by our "liberal media" for free.

If Dems could concern troll this well, they'd not be in half the trouble they are now.

The Only Thing Faked Here Is The Anti-Obama Headline

Our "liberal media" strikes again:

In the home stretch of the 2012 presidential campaign, from August to September, the unemployment rate fell sharply — raising eyebrows from Wall Street to Washington.

The decline — from 8.1 percent in August to 7.8 percent in September — might not have been all it seemed. The numbers, according to a reliable source, were manipulated.

And the Census Bureau, which does the unemployment survey, knew it.

Just two years before the presidential election, the Census Bureau had caught an employee fabricating data that went into the unemployment report, which is one of the most closely watched measures of the economy.

And a knowledgeable source says the deception went beyond that one employee — that it escalated at the time President Obama was seeking reelection in 2012 and continues today.

Please note the bolded part there.  In 2010, a Census Bureau found "an employee", singular, who was making up stuff to meet his quota.

That magically becomes "Obama has been faking all jobs numbers since 2010."  Hell, even Doug Mataconis calls bullshit on it.

Quite obviously the report has gotten considerable attention in the conservative blogosphere, and it’s easy to see how this could eventually become the kind of scandal that ended up before a House Subcommittee in the same manner that things like the Fast & Furious gun running story, the Behghazi attack, and the IRS targeting story have. Indeed, I’d almost guarantee that this is what’s going to happen eventually. Looking at the report in more detail, however, it’s quite apparent that there’s a lot less here than the Post headline, and much of the blog coverage, would have you believe, something that both Business Insider’s Joe Weisenthal and James Pethokoukis of the conservative American Enterprise Institute have pointed out today.

For example, the Post report indicates that this entire story about possible fabrication of census data actually goes back to 2010, two years before the Presidential election. This suggests that the allegations, if true, are more about institutional problems at the Census Department than some kind of conspiracy to aid the Obama campaign. Second, Second, as Weisenthal notes, to the extent that this Census employee Buckmon that is quoted as a source is claiming he was pressured, it was a pressure to produce reports, not a pressure to produce reports saying that he had interviewed people who were employed. He could’ve just as easily handed in reports saying, falsely, that he had talked to people who reported that they were unemployed. Third, as both Weisenthal and Pethokoukis point out, the problem of under-reporting that led to pressure from the Labor Department was apparently limited to New York and Philadelphia, but the figures for those areas for September 2012 actually show the unemployment rate rising rather than falling, so it’s unclear how this could have led to the national rate falling by 0.2%. Finally, as Weisenthal points out, while the September 2012 report seemed odd at the time, it was in fact overall consistent with how unemployment has trended in the year that has followed.

But hey, this is the new SCANDAL OF THE CENTURY so whatever.  Dude, even Pethokoukis is shaking his head at this nonsense.  But let's waste valuable taxpayer dollars on hearings and stuff.

Zandar's Thought Of The Day

Ask a complicated question of a simple mind...

Tell us your favorite joke. 

Q: What’s the definition of a liberal? 

A: Someone who doesn’t care what you do as long as it’s mandatory.

...and don't be surprised at the quality of the answer.

StupidiNews!

• A series of explosions outside the Iranian embassy in Beirut, Lebanon has left 23 dead so far and over 140 injured as the group responsible for the attack has yet to step forward.
• Vermont's independent Senator Bernie Sanders is considering a 2016 White House run if "no other" progressive candidate enters the race.
• The first planned Palestinian city in the occupied West Bank is under construction, the city of Rawabi will house as many as 40,000. 
• Forget the CEO's "golden parachute" severance package when they leave a company, these days it's the "golden hello" signing bonus for the nation's top CEOs that are drawing attention.
• Who watches the watchmen?  Boston's Finest will be under the eye of GPS units tracking the movements of police cruisers to improve dispatch and response time.

Last Call For The End Of Obamacare, Version 92734

National Journal's Josh Kraushaar lands in the Future Stupidity files with his predictions of the repeal of Obamacare:

Unless the HealthCare.gov website miraculously gets fixed by next month, there's a growing likelihood that over time, enough Democrats may join Republicans to decide to start over and scrap the whole complex health care enterprise. That became clear when even Obama, to stop the political bleeding, offered an administrative fix that threatened the viability of the entire individual exchange market to forestall a House Democratic mutiny the next day. It was as clear sign as any that the president is pessimistic about the odds that the federal exchange website will be ready by the end of the month, as promised.

More than anything, politics is about self-preservation, and the last two weeks provided numerous examples of how public opinion has turned so hard against the law that even its most ardent supporters are running for the hills. It's not just red-state Democrats, like Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu, distancing themselves from the law. It's blue-state senators like Oregon's Jeff Merkley and New Hampshire's Jeanne Shaheen -- and top blue-state recruits like Michigan's Gary Peters and Iowa's Bruce Braley, who voted for GOP legislation Friday that the White House said would "gut" the law. Nearly every House Democrat in a competitive district joined with Republicans to threaten the law. Without a quick fix, those ranks will grow.

This tsunami of blowback, which built in just the last month, is unsustainable for Democrats over the long haul. The president isn't just losing his skeptics from the chaotic Obamacare rollout but his allies who stood to gain from the law's benefits -- namely Hispanics, whose approval of the president has dropped more than any demographic subgroup since the problems began. The simplest solution -- if only to stop the bleeding -- is to get the website fixed. (When former DNC Chairman Howard Dean's proposal is to hire tens of thousands of young phone operators to sign people up for insurance -- straight out of a Jerry Lewis telethon -- as he suggested on "Morning Joe," it's clear the website problems are really bad.).

And yes, if the website remains broken (which it's not going to) Kraushaar has a point.  But then he goes way off into the stratosphere:

Would President Obama sign a death warrant on his own signature legislation? That's almost impossible to imagine, but it's entirely reasonable that he may not have a choice in the matter. Consider: Despite the White House's protestations, 62.4 percent of the House voted for Michigan GOP Rep. Fred Upton's legislation (261-157), just shy of the two-thirds necessary to override a veto. And consider the House Democrats who voted against Upton's bill but nonetheless released harsh statements criticizing Obamacare. Maryland Rep. John Delaney, in a statement, wrote: "The problem we have currently is that the Affordable Care Act is not working." Added Arizona Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick: "The stunning ineptitude of the ACA marketplace rollout is more than a public relations disaster. It is a disaster for the working families in my Arizona district who badly need quality, affordable health care." Add them into the mix -- the dozens more members who were poised to split with the president until his face-saving press conference -- and you've got all but the hardy Obama loyalists who could end up bolting if the political environment doesn't improve.

And if that happens, the Democrats all but deserve to be politically wiped out.  That will leave us with of course even more Republicans in power, and that's not acceptable.  But this article assumes that "Obama loyalists" have zero influence in the party, or over Democrats in Congress, and that's not true.

Only if you believe that the millions of people who support the ACA have no voice is this scenario accurate.  I'm telling you that's just not the case, and Kraushaar should know better than to just troll like this.

Or as Jamelle Bouie puts it:

The entire premise of this piece is absolute fantasy: http://t.co/T6wd4VppOS
— Jamelle Bouie (@jbouie) November 18, 2013

Fantasy indeed.

Pick Up Our Ball And Go Bomb You With It

Apparently the concept of US Secretary of State John Kerry making any sort of deal with Iran is so utterly terrifying to Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu that our erstwhile ally in the Middle East is now actively trying to destroy the 5+1 talks with Tehran.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that the plan currently being formulated by world leaders to keep Iran from developing nuclear weapons will not be effective.

"This is a bad deal," Netanyahu said on CNN's "State of the Union."

He said that global leaders should increase sanctions on Iran, not loosen them.

"I think, if you want a peaceful solution, as I do, then the right thing to do is ratchet up the sanctions," he said. "Iran is practically giving away nothing. It's making a minor concession, which they can reverse in weeks, and you endanger the whole sanctions regime that took years to make."

Netanyahu argued that an imperfect deal could backfire and force the U.S. and other to used the military option.

"If you do a bad deal, you may get to the point where your only option is a military option," he said. "So a bad deal actually can lead you to exactly the place you don't want to be."

Beginning to see why the 5+1 countries are the five UN permanent Security Council members and Germany, and not Israel.  The Iranians want lessening of sanctions as part of any deal.  Any deal that lessens sanctions on Iran is a bad deal according to Israel.  Any bad deal could lead to Israeli military action.  You see where Bibi is going with this.

The question is why?  That's easy, nobody likes getting left out of the party.  Israel doesn't think anyone should be having talks with Iran at all, and they're making it clear to the US that these talks shouldn't continue.

Look for increasing pressure from Republicans demanding to walk away from talks and simply increase sanctions ad infinitum.

Stormy Weather Ahead

Devastation from last week's Super Typhoon Haiyan has prompted the Philippines to take a scheduled UN climate change meeting and start asking some very tough questions about how poorer nations are supposed to survive rising oceans and super storms when the big boys are dumping most of the carbon into the atmosphere.

Calling the climate crisis “madness,” the Philippines representative vowed to fast for the duration of the talks. Malia Talakai, a negotiator for the Alliance of Small Island States, a group that includes her tiny South Pacific homeland, Nauru, said that without urgent action to stem rising sea levels, “some of our members won’t be around.” 

From the time a scientific consensus emerged that human activity was changing the climate, it has been understood that the nations that contributed least to the problem would be hurt the most. Now, even as the possible consequences of climate change have surged — from the typhoons that have raked the Philippines and India this year to the droughts in Africa, to rising sea levels that threaten to submerge entire island nations — no consensus has emerged over how to rectify what many call “climate injustice.” 

Growing demands to address the issue have become an emotionally charged flash point at negotiations here at the 19th conference of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which continues this week. 

At a news briefing here, Farah Kabir, the director in Bangladesh for the anti-poverty organization ActionAid International, described that country as a relatively small piece of land “with a population of 160 million, trying to cope with this extreme weather, trying to cope with the effect of emissions for which we are not responsible.”

So yeah, these island and coastal nations are pretty pissed off.  While the large nations of the world continue to bicker over who will make the most profit off the twilight of fossil fuels, it's the little guys who are the first up against the wall when the rising seas come.  But hey, say the deniers, if it doesn't affect the US heartland, well, who gives a damn?

Of course, the US heartland just got plastered by a huge tornado outbreak.  In November.

I'm sure it's just a coincidence.  Drill baby drill.

StupidiNews!

• A major multi-state wave of tornadoes ripped through the Midwest on Sunday leaving six dead, hardest hit was central Illinois where tens of thousands are still without power.
• All 44 aboard a Boeing 737 are dead after a plane crash in western Russia, investigators are seeking answers as to how the plane went down on a second landing attempt.
• As Americans are using less gas, the EPA is proposing new rules to reduce the amount of ethanol blended into gasoline to prevent damage to automobile engines.
• Nobel Literature laureate Doris Lessing, author of "The Golden Notebook", has passed at the age of 94.
• California has quickly moved to shut down fraudulent health care websites the state says were falsely luring consumers into believing they were Covered California, the state's health insurance exchange.

GOP Tries To Have Its Obamacare And Repeal It Too

Let's take a closer look at Louisiana's special election for the House from yesterday.  LA-5 wasn't anywhere near my radar as the runoff was between two Republicans.  The difference:  one wanted to repeal Obamacare, the other wanted to repeal Obamacare but while we have the law, let's expand Medicaid to poor, rural Louisianans.

Guess who won by 20 points?

Louisiana voters elected Republican Vance McAllister in a runoff to fill the state’s vacant Fifth District U.S. House seat on Saturday. McAllister, a businessman who embraced the expansion of Medicaid available to the state under the Affordable Care Act, defeated a Republican party favorite who called for full Obamacare repeal. 

In a district won by Mitt Romney with 61 percent of the vote in 2012, two Republicans were the top vote-getters in a 14-candidate October primary. McAllister, who received nearly 60 percent of the vote in Saturday’s special election, criticized much of the Affordable Care Act, but also criticized Gov. Bobby Jindal’s (R) decision to dismantle charity hospitals in the state, and to reject its Medicaid expansion, which would expand the qualifications for Medicaid recipients and extend healthcare coverage to hundreds of thousands of uninsured Louisianans. “Our governor and Sen. Riser right here have gutted [heath care] to the core and privatized it.” 

McAllister’s top opponent, State Senator Neil Riser (R), received support from House Republican Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA), three of the four other Louisiana Republican Congressmen, the National Rifle Association, FreedomWorks and, more tacitly, Gov. Jindal. Riser ran ads saying that he would go to Washington to balance the budget and stop Obamacare — not make friends — andslammed McAllister for ” attempting to redefine himself and stand with President Obama.”

And yet the guy still won by 20 points, mainly because I'm betting all the Democrats in the district sided with him.  This is exactly why Republicans hate Louisiana's "top two" runoff system, by the way.

My prediction will be Vance McAllister won't be the last Republican to run on "the good parts of Obamacare" and win.  Eventually, all of them will be running on it.

Even the ones who lose to Democrats running on keeping Obamacare.