Doing The Right Thing By Force Of Outrage, Apparently

It's the only way to get Republicans to actually do anything that doesn't involve being privileged misogynist dipsticks.  As I noted yesterday, the House was likely going to pass the Senate's version of VAWA...because they didn't have the votes to pass their own version of it.  Today, they did just that.

On Thursday, by a vote of 286 to 138, the House passed the bipartisan Senate-approved version of the bill — one that includes added protections for LGBT, Native American, and undocumented victims of domestic violence.

A watered down Republican version of the bill, which was offered as a substitute amendment, failed to garner enough votes to slow the process. It was struck down by a vote of 257 to 166. Sixty Republicans voted against their own party’s replacement measure.

During the last session of Congress, the GOP-led House approved their watered-down VAWA, while the Senate included expanded provisions in the version it passed. The two were never reconciled, and Congress failed to renew the 18-year-old domestic violence law by the time it disbanded at the end of 2012. 

PS:  All 138 no votes?  Republicans.  What war on women, right?

The provisions included protections for Native American women, allowing them to seek justice with tribal courts when the assailant is non-Native, protections for LGBT Americans, and the provisions of the SAFER act, which will reduce the untested backlog of rape kits in America's police custody.  This is a solid win for Democrats, President Obama and all Americans here.

And it's about damn time.

We Come Not To Praise Progress Kentucky...

...but to bury them.  Joe Sonka has the epitaph after Tuesday's nasty little race-baiting incident involving Mitch the Turtle's wife, former Bush 43 Labor Secretary Elaine Chao.

And this is why Democrats who want to defeat McConnell have a great sense of relief right now, because Progress Kentucky is effectively dead, and they’ll soon be replaced by a new group of seasoned professionals who know how to mess with a powerful political candidate on the ropes and know how to raise a hell of a lot of money to further that cause.

In fact, if I was McConnell, I’d seriously consider finding an obscenely wealthy supporter who is willing to write Progress Kentucky a ginormous check that could keep them operational, as Progress Kentucky has been the only thing helping McConnell’s re-election campaign over the past four months. His campaign and national Republican organizations were celebrating yesterday, but in four months they’ll be wishing Progress Kentucky was the independent expenditure group they were battling, and not the hardened pros who are bludgeoning McConnell with focused messaging that has loads of money behind it.

But until that time, Democrats in Kentucky and across the country – liberals, moderates and conservatives – have a loud and unified message for Progress Kentucky: Pack up your stuff and go away.

The fact is these guys managed to raise all of a couple thousand dollars in four months.  They're about as super a PAC as I am a professional jazz flautist, and getting these guys off the stage so that the Dems can really lay into McConnell for the depleted-uranium albatross of a record around his neck is a pretty good thing.

In other words, it's a damn good thing these guys crashed and burned early.  To take down Mitch McConnell is going to take a crapload of hard work, and the sooner we got these guys out of the way, the better off Kentucky Dems were going to be.

I'm glad I never got around to donating to these guys, either.

StupidiNews!

• After the loud and vocal battle over Chuck Hagel's nomination as Defense Secretary, the Senate has quietly confirmed Jack Lew as Treasury Secretary by a 71-27 vote.
• A British NHS study finds that a massive increase in the intake of processed sugar is responsible for the epidemic of type 2 diabetes in the UK.
• GOP leaders will meet with the White House on Friday to discuss the sequestration budget cuts, but at this point they can't even agree on exactly when the cuts would go into effect.
• Barclays Bank is taking the 450 million pound fine for its involvement in the Libor scandal directly out of banker bonuses for the year.
• France continues its tough "three strikes" policy on internet copyright violations, now saying that monitoring streaming sites like Youtube in real time is necessary.

Last Call

It looks like the House GOP has figured out that actively legislating discrimination about which women deserve protections under the Violence Against Women Act is not only unrelentingly awful, but political hemlock as well.

House Republican leaders signaled Tuesday night that they are ready to let their VAWA bill die and clear the way for a broader, bipartisan Senate bill. The Senate legislation includes new protections missing from the House bill for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT), Native American and immigrant victims of domestic violence.

Here’s the House GOP plan procedurally, based on House Rules Committee actions Tuesday night: The House is expected to hold two VAWA votes on Thursday. The first will be to strip out the language of the Senate VAWA bill and replace it with the House GOP language. Since that isn’t expected to pass, lawmakers will then vote on the Senate VAWA bill itself. A GOP source involved in negotiations conceded that there is greater support for the Senate bill, and that the Senate version is likely the one to pass. That means VAWA could land on President Barack Obama’s desk by the end of this week — the version sought by the White House and Democrats.

Pretty much total surrender here on the issue as House Republicans have the approval ratings of somewhere between ebola in a nursery school and National Chewing On Tinfoil Month.

That House Republican leaders are allowing the Senate bill to get a floor vote is significant because they refused to let that happen in the last Congress, even though lawmakers in both parties believed it would pass. The move also signals that GOP leaders are ready to stop fighting over an issue that has damaged them politically. Congress failed to reauthorize VAWA in 2011 due in large part to House Republican resistance to the new protections in the Senate bill, and Democrats clobbered them over it throughout the 2012 election season.

People forget in what was supposed to be a big year for the GOP in 2012, not only did they lose Senate seats, but House seats as well.   Letting VAWA die for a year now looks like a fatal mistake for the GOP, one they’re now scrambling to correct after badmouthing the Senate version as recently as last week.  What’s behind the change in heart?  Perhaps correctly assuming he would personally shoulder the blame should the bill die, Eric Cantor has now relented.

It’s not a victory yet for the good guys, but things look a lot better than just last Friday, when the house version was passed.  Suddenly, this same House version doesn’t have the votes to survive the reconciliation process with the Senate bill. 

Funny how that works.

Re-Birther Of The Uncool, Part Eleventy Squared

Oh racist Republican jackass birthers, don’t ever stop reminding the American people just which party is full of bigots and crackpots whose awful views aren’t just tolerated but are openly welcomed.  Via Taegan Goddard:

Michigan state Sen. Tom Casperson (R) told a radio show he’s not sure where Obama was born, according to Deadline Detroit.

Said Casperson: “I don’t know because it seems like that issue was dropped immediately as far as the major media went. My gut tells me if it had been a different president, say George W. Bush, they’d have been digging into like there was no tomorrow and trying to get to the bottom of, which they never really tried to get to the bottom of.”

That’s because there’s nothing to get to the bottom of, you moron.  The President was born in Hawaii, period.  Anyone who tells you otherwise is a racist clown, point blank.  Stop it.  It’s the guy’s second term already.  If you’re still questioning his birthplace at this point after five years, there’s really nothing left but good ol’ racism to explain it.  End of line.

Ain’t nobody got time for this, as they say.

Why We Still Need Section 5

SCOTUS will hear arguments today in the case of Shelby County, Alabama versus the Voting Rights Act.  Section 5, which determines which counties and states (all with decades-long histories of discrimination against minority voters) are subject to Justice Department "pre-clearance" before changes in voting laws can take place.  Shelby County argues those laws are no longer necessary in 2013, and that holding Shelby County to Section 5 violates the Tenth Amendment.  As Sahil Kapur reports at TPM, the goal here is the end of the Voting Rights Act, and the end of voting equality in southern red states.

The lead plaintiff, Shelby County of Alabama, argues that although Section 5 was justified at the time to correct the evils of racism, it now lacks constitutional basis because the regions it singles out have experienced a dramatic rise in minority voter participation and because outright discriminatory laws like literacy tests are outlawed.

“Section 5 exacts a heavy, unprecedented federalism cost,” Shelby County wrote in its brief, “by forbidding the implementation of all voting changes in jurisdictions identified by Section 4(b) until federal officials are satisfied that the changes do not undermine minority voting rights.” Without more evidence that those parts of the country continue to systematically disenfranchise minority voters, “Section 5’s federalism cost is too great,” it said.

Congress begs to differ. In 2006, a Republican-led Congress reauthorized the Voting Rights Act, including Section 5, after it determined that “vestiges of discrimination in voting continue to exist as demonstrated by second generation barriers constructed to prevent minority voters from fully participating in the electoral process.”

Defenders of the law argue that Section 5 remains an essential tool to proactively combat voter disenfranchisement. They point to various instances in recent years where the Justice Department has denied preclearance for voting changes to covered regions, and will contend that efforts at voter discrimination are more routine in those areas than in the rest of the country. They also note that Congress, not the courts, is tasked with enforcing the 15th Amendment.

Section 5 has been validated four times by the Supreme Court, in 1966, 1973, 1980 and 1999, noting that the 15th Amendment authorizes Congress to enforce the ban on discriminatory voting laws. But the ideological makeup of today’s Court means another victory will be a tough slog for defenders, as five justices have sympathized with the notion that Section 5 is unfair.

“Things have changed in the South,” wrote Chief Justice John Roberts in 2009.

And yet voter discrimination exists today, where a new class of more subtle Jim Crow laws put minority voters at a distinct disadvantage.  Let's not forget that just eight months ago, federal judges unanimously found that Texas Republicans blatantly violated Section 5 laws when the state's redistricting plan openly discriminated against Latino voters, and that in fact the plan was based on taking political power away from Latino voters.  Without Section 5 in place, that plan would have gone through.

A redistricting plan signed by Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) intentionally discriminated against Hispanic voters, a three-judge panel unanimously ruled Tuesday. The judges found that seats belonging to white incumbent members of Congress were protected under the plan while districts belonging to incumbent minorities were targeted for changes.

The court was “persuaded by the totality of the evidence that the plan was enacted with discriminatory intent,” according to the ruling. There was “sufficient evidence to conclude that the Congressional Plan was motivated, at least in part, by discriminatory intent,” the court found.

The three judges said they were overwhelmed with the amount of evidence showing the congressional redistricting plan was intentionally discriminatory, writing in a footnote that parties “have provided more evidence of discriminatory intent than we have space, or need, to address here.”

No, Chief Justice Roberts.  Things are not different in the South.  Not at all.

StupidiNews!

• Despite promised protests, several Republicans joined with Democrats in the Senate to break the filibuster against Chuck Hagel and confirm him as Defense Secretary.
• The Supreme Court will take up police collection of DNA as a violation of the Fourth Amendment's illegal search and seizure clause.
• Member of Congress on both sides of the aisle are expressing concern with the effects of the $11 billion US Airways/American merger on airport hubs and airfares.
• A revised UK 4th quarter figure still shows the European country is in recession, suffering a 0.3% contraction at the end of last year.
• New information on the Stuxnet worm used to attack Iranian nuclear centrifuges finds at least one version of the program was at one point designed for espionage as well as sabotage.

Last Call

Try harder, Republicans.  Bryan Preston at Bananas in Pajamas:

Progress Kentucky is angling to push GOP Sen. Mitch McConnell out of the Senate. The “progressive” group seems to have a problem with race, though, specifically the race of McConnell’s wife.

Recently, the group turned its attention to McConnell’s wife, former Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao, with a focus on her race.

In a Feb. 14 Twitter message, Progress says: “This woman has the ear of (Sen. McConnell)—she’s his wife. May explain why your job moved to China!”

Chao, you see, is ethnically Chinese. She was born in Taiwan. To these “progressives,” she’s a yellow menace.

Now, Chao was Labor Secretary for Dubya for eight years, under which 2.3 million US jobs were lost to China.  Still, that was a bad choice of words for the tweet and it's minimum casting Chao as the "other" based on China, which means somebody is an asshole and deserves the crapstorm that's coming.  Public apologies to Chao are minimum acceptability here, which is what they have done this evening:

Progress Kentucky is dedicated to ensuring the people of KY have the kind of representation in the US Senate they deserve. In an effort to educate KY voters as to the varied interests of Sen. McConnell we provided information about connections between the senator and business and government interests in China. This information included an inappropriate comment on the ethnicity of the former Secretary of Labor, Elaine Chao, the senator’s wife. 

We apologize to the secretary for that unnecessary comment and have deleted the tweets in question. In addition, we have put a review process in place to ensure tweets and other social media communications from Progress KY are reviewed and approved prior to posting.

Which is lukewarm at best.  But, you notice this story broke nearly two weeks after the tweet was made, until Ashley Judd conveniently had to denounce something less than 24 hours after a story about her in the NY Times?  Even more so, let's remember Progress Kentucky is basically one guy on Twitter, Shawn Mark Reilly.  If it's a Democratic SuperPAC, I'm a world-famous archaeologist because I found an arrowhead once when I was in Boy Scouts.

Finally, let's not forget that Republicans sure enjoy making actual racist comments on purpose.  But what's uncalled for is this tirade by Preston:

Progress Kentucky’s racist tweet is far from the first time leftists have engaged in overt racism against Republicans who happen to be minorities. Bobby Jindal faced race-based attacks on his Indian heritage when he successfully ran for governor of Louisiana. South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley has faced racist and sexist attacks from the left. The Democrats opposed Miguel Estrada’s appointment to the federal judiciary during the Bush years explicitly because he is Hispanic. He was never even given a vote. The Democrats’ opposition to Clarence Thomas’ appointment to the US Supreme Court was fueled by Democrat racism.

The Democrats are and have always been the party of racism. From sparking the Civil War to defend slavery, through the “white primaries” in Texas to Jim Crow and now this attack on Elaine Chow, the left exploits race for power when they can and run racist attacks when they believe they can get away with it.

No, that's projection.  I'll tell you what,  when you decide to hold the GOP to the same standard on iffy tweets where the President and his wife are referred to as tarbabies, gorillas, and savages, let me know.

Wrestling With The Immigration Debate

Oliver Willis has a point here with the WWE's latest gimmick, where wrestler Jack Swagger and his Hannity-spouting manager Jeb Colter are the Gadsden Flag waving heels -- the bad guys being booed by crowds -- and "Mexican Millionaire" Alberto Del Rio is the face -- the good guy fighting to cheers.

On Monday’s edition of WWE Raw, Colter and Del Rio had a debate about immigration that really could have been ripped right out of cable news. Colter again complained that undocumented workers were taking American jobs and weren’t hard workers, while also whining about it being politically incorrect for him to refer to “illegals.”

He was booed. Loudly.

Del Rio responded by describing America as “the greatest country in the world,” which was the motivation for immigrants coming here to seek a better life for themselves.

This argument from Del Rio, coming from the Latino character in response to the right-wing xenophobe, was roundly applauded and prompted a “USA” chant in the arena.

In Texas.

(True to conservative form, Colter later complained that the moderator of his debate with Del Rio had shown… bias)

Sure, it’s a silly, goofy, over the top fake wrestling show – but it is also an entertainment vehicle that historically has had its finger on the pulse of its audience, changing itself to pander to the cultural zeitgeist of the moment.

WWE boss Vince McMahon, a modern day P.T. Barnum (and husband to a failed Republican Senatorial candidate), tends to give his audience the heroes and villains needed to attract eyeballs and open their wallets. McMahon and WWE have discovered that a pro-immigrant hero attracts applause and cheers, while an anti-immigrant villain is laughed at and booed.

The character who would be right at home between The O’Reilly Factor and Hannity is the bad guy.

Maybe somebody should tell the Republicans.

Oliver's right here, Vince McMahon knows what sells (his wife as a teabagger Senator in Connecticut, not so much.)  But it's a least a small sign that the times, they are a-changin'.  No matter what the GOP says, the rest of the country is having a huge laugh at the expense of the teabaggers, and if the fans of the WWE are booing the GOP line on "illegals" and cheering for a Latino hero living la vida loca (what's more "American Dream" than that?) then that's at least one more brick coming down in the wall.

Welcome to 2013, GOP.  Maybe someday you'll join us.

The Sequester Fester

As I mentioned this morning in Stupidinews, Republicans have decided to Do Something About The Sequester:  propose that the Obama Administration has to come up with the cuts, but leave the total amount of slashing the same, so that all the blame falls on the President.

In a last-minute bid to minimize the most painful impacts of federal spending cuts – and perhaps blame – Republicans will propose this week allowing the government to choose where to cut.

They plan to introduce proposals to allow flexibility while maintaining the overall level of cuts mandated by a 2011 law.

The proposal is in response to the Obama administration’s repeated complaint that the law doesn’t allow managers the flexibility to shift the reductions from such areas as teachers or programs to help female victims of violence. It’s also a move to shelter the GOP from blame should the cuts cause widespread pain. 

“As a leader, he should want as much flexibility as he can get from Congress,” said Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, the chairman of the Republican Governors Association. “When did he ever go to his Cabinet secretaries, his agency heads and say, ‘What would be the least painful . . . way?’ ”

Democrats criticized the proposal, however, saying it would lock in the overall level of cuts – $85 billion for this fiscal year and $1.2 trillion over 10 years – which they argue would hurt the economy. They’ll propose smaller spending reductions supplemented by tax increases.

“The overwhelming majority of Americans want us to compromise before our neighbors, friends and family members get pink slips or notices that they can only work for a few days a week this month,” said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.

So this is GOP 101, a move so stupidly partisan that even McClatchy is pointing out the obvious.  They're literally proposing a bill that absolves them of any responsibility for the sequester.  If the cuts are "miniscule" and helpful to the economy then why not own them?

Nobody seems to have the answer to that question, least of all the GOP.

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/02/25/184131/gop-will-propose-sequester-changes.html#storylink=cpy

StupidiNews!

• Some 19 tourists in the Egyptian city of Luxor are dead after a hot air balloon plummeted to the ground after exploding.
• KFC has stopped sourcing chickens from over 1,000 farms in China after last year's tainted chicken scandal cost them 6% in Chinese sales last year.
• Republicans will propose letting the federal government choose where to make $1.2 trillion in cuts, but will do nothing to stop them with their last-minute sequester bill.
• With over 55% of Italians voting for the two parties opposed to austerity in Sunday's elections, world markets continue to drop on renewd Eurozone crisis fears.
• Evidence in Siberian caves could mean that a small rise in global temperatures could melt the entire Siberian permafrost, unleashing tons of carbon into the atmosphere.

Last Call

House GOP dipstick Steve "Let's immediately impeach Obama" Stockman continues to try to out-stupid the rest of the clowns in his caucus with this nonsense:

"Obama's anti-gun campaign is a fraud," Stockman said. "Obama's supporters are panicking and willing to do anything to create the appearance of popular support, even if it means trying to defraud Congress," he added. "I call upon the president to denounce this phony spam campaign."

Wait a minute.  He has proof that the vast majority of Americans, including Republicans, who support universal background checks, are a fraud?  Oh do proceed, Congressman.

Stockman said that in response to Obama's call for people to tweet their congressman in support of gun control legislation, he received just 16 tweets. But he said all of these messages were identical, and that a closer look at them revealed that only six were from real people.

Never heard of retweets, I guess.

"The other 10 are fake, computer-generated spambots," his office said in a press release. As evidence, he said these 10 tweets use default graphics and names, and have not engaged in any interaction with other people. Two of the tweets were sent at nearly the same time, and both follow just one person: Brad Schenck, Obama's former digital strategist.

So...that's his evidence?  Ten spambots on a social media site with millions of them means that 10 out of 16 of all gun control supporters don't actually exist?  Who's a big enough moron to take credit for this idiocy?

Oh, J.S. McCain.  Natch.

And then Stockman's office runs with this story?  Hooboy.  They don't grow em real smart down in Texas, do they.  Just go ahead and secede, guys.  Nobody'll miss you.

Also, hope Stockman doesn't figure out Horse_ebooks isn't real.

Or is he?

And Then It Really Hits Home

The damage from the "miniscule cuts" of the sequester will have deep impact on thousands of jobs in individual states, and here in the Cincy Tri-State of Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana, that means some serious cuts, starting with schools in Kentucky:

Kentucky will lose approximately $11.8 million in funding for primary and secondary education, putting around 160 teacher and aide jobs at risk. In addition about 21,000 fewer students would be served and approximately 40 fewer schools would receive funding. In addition, Kentucky will lose approximately $7.7 million in funds for about 90 teachers, aides, and staff who help children with disabilities.

It gets worse for the Hoosier State:

Indiana will lose approximately $13.8 million in funding for primary and secondary education, putting around 190 teacher and aide jobs at risk. In addition about 12,000 fewer students would be served and approximately 50 fewer schools would receive funding. In addition, Indiana will lose approximately $12.4 million in funds for about 150 teachers, aides, and staff who help children with disabilities.

And far worse for Ohio:

Ohio will lose approximately $25.1 million in funding for primary and secondary education, putting around 350 teacher and aide jobs at risk. In addition about 34,000 fewer students would be served and approximately 100 fewer schools would receive funding. In addition, Ohio will lose approximately $22 million in funds for about 270 teachers, aides, and staff who help children with disabilities. 

There's more than just schools that will be hit:  work study jobs, law enforcement, public safety, head Start, environmental programs, and more.  You can look up your state to see what sequestration means for where you live, and keep in mind Republicans have gone on record saying not only do they want these deep cuts, they want even more.

And they don't mind wrecking hundreds of thousands of jobs nationwide to get those cuts.

Is it starting to hit home now, folks?

No, He Cantor

Ryan Lizza's piece in the New Yorker on GOP House majority leader Eric Cantor is thick with disappointment and hubris, and the goal appears to be absolving him of the guilt of 2012 to allow him to take credit in 2014 and 2016.

Cantor is the House Majority Leader, which means that he is responsible for the mundane business of managing the schedule, the House floor, and committees, where legislation is generally written. He has used his position to transform himself into the Party’s chief political strategist. Cantor is frequently talked about as a future Speaker; he could even be a future President, some of his aides say. Since the election, as Republicans have confronted Obama in a series of budgetary battles—another will unfold this week—few have tried as hard as Cantor to reposition and redefine the defeated party.

“He’s a fantastic Majority Leader,” Paul Ryan, the chairman of the House Budget Committee and a close friend, said. “Eric keeps the trains running on time very efficiently.” As Mitt Romney’s former running mate and the architect of the budget policies that some Republicans blame for their loss in 2012, Ryan is well aware of his party’s problems. “What Eric is really focussed on is that we need to do a better job of broadening our appeal and showing that we have real ideas and solutions that make people’s lives better,” Ryan said. “Eric is the guy who studies the big vision and is doing the step-by-step, daily management of the process to get us there. That is a huge job.”

To recap, the losing VP candidate thinks Cantor is "fantastic".  That's all you need to know about the House GOP over the next 2 years, more likely 4, as they will continue doing what they are doing now, only worse and more of it.

Cantor was one of the most influential political forces in Obama’s first term. In June of 2011, the President and the Speaker began working toward a Grand Bargain of major tax increases and spending cuts to address the government’s long-term budget deficits. Until late June, Boehner had managed to keep these talks secret from Cantor. On July 21st, Boehner paused in his discussions with Obama to talk to Cantor and outline the proposed deal. As Obama waited by the phone for a response from the Speaker, Cantor struck. Cantor told me that it was a “fair assessment” that he talked Boehner out of accepting Obama’s deal. He said he told Boehner that it would be better, instead, to take the issues of taxes and spending to the voters and “have it out” with the Democrats in the election. Why give Obama an enormous political victory, and potentially help him win reëlection, when they might be able to negotiate a more favorable deal with a new Republican President? Boehner told Obama there was no deal. Instead of a Grand Bargain, Cantor and the House Republicans made a grand bet.

The bet failed spectacularly. Just as Cantor had urged, Obama and Romney spent much of the campaign debating tax and spending policies that the House Republicans had foisted on the Romney-Ryan ticket. What’s more, by scuttling the 2011 Grand Bargain negotiations, Cantor, more than any other politician, helped create the series of fiscal crises that have gripped Washington since Election Day. The failure of the Grand Bargain led to a byzantine deal: if the two parties could not agree on a new deficit plan, then a combination of tax increases and spending cuts—cuts known, in budget jargon, as a “sequester”—would automatically kick in on New Year’s Day. (The sequester was postponed until March 1st.) Looming beyond this “fiscal cliff” was an even more perilous fight, over the expiration of the debt ceiling, which is the limit on how much money the government can borrow, and which Congress must regularly raise if the Treasury is to pay its bills.

Lizza is correct here.  The mess we're in now is a direct result of Cantor's politically terminal case of Obama Derangement Syndrome.  Four years of manufactured crises designed to destroy the Democratic president backfired, so now those who voted for him must be punished by another four years of crises.

It really is negotiation with terrorists, and always has been.  And the man behind this tactic has been Cantor, not Boehner, from the beginning.

StupidiNews!

• Argo picked up Best Picture, Ang Lee surprised for Best Director for Life of Pi, and Daniel Day Lewis got his third Best Actor award at last night's Oscars.
• The failure of a major power station in southwest Pakistan ended up blacking out the entire country for two hours yesterday.
• The White House has released a state-by-state impact study of the effects of the steep sequester cuts that will go into effect Friday unless Congress acts.
• With the Eurozone's continuing recession, companies are stockpiling cash rather than investing in growth as sales decline.
• Sony has smashed into the android tablet market with the waterproof, super thin Xperia Z starting at $499.