Goodbye, Farrah

Several news outlets are reporting at this hour that actress Farrah Fawcett has lost her battle with cancer.

More on this as it comes in.

[UPDATE 1:16 PM] The LA Times has the obit.

Farrah Fawcett, who soared to fame as a national sex symbol in the late 1970s on television's campy "Charlie's Angels" and in a swimsuit poster that showcased her feathery mane and made her a generation's favorite pinup, died today at 62, according to Reuters.

Fawcett, whose celebrity overshadowed her ability as a serious actress, was diagnosed with a rare anal cancer in 2006.

Three months after she was declared cancer-free in 2007, doctors at UCLA Medical Center told her the cancer had returned, spreading to her liver, and she repeatedly sought experimental treatment in Germany.

As an actress, Fawcett was initially dismissed for her role as Jill Munroe in "Charlie's Angels," one of the "jiggle" series on ABC-TV in the late 1970s.

But she transformed her career and some popular perceptions in 1984 with "The Burning Bed," a television movie about a battered wife that brought her the first of three Emmy nominations. She further established herself as an actress in the play and later feature film "Extremities," about a rape victim who takes revenge on her attacker.

For many, the poster of her wearing a wet one-piece swimsuit and a blinding smile endured.

"If you were to list 10 images that are evocative of American pop culture, Farrah Fawcett would be one of them," Robert Thompson, a professor of television and popular culture at Syracuse University, told The Times. "That poster became one of the defining images of the 1970s."

Cancer is always a tough battle, especially to have it go into remission and then come back to claim you like that. Wishes go out to the family and friends.

Yes, Even Scalia Thought This Was Crap

Amazingly enough, the Roberts court sent down an 8-1 decision that school officials strip searching 13-year old girls just might be mildly unconstitutional.

In a closely watched case filled with poignant facts, the court ruled 8-1 that Arizona school officials violated student Savana Redding's Fourth Amendment rights when they searched her down to her bra and underpants. Officials were looking for pain relievers, which they didn't find.

"The content of the suspicion failed to match the degree of intrusion," Justice David Souter wrote for the majority.

The ruling involving Redding, who's now a college student, has been anticipated by schools nationwide, which must balance concerns about student privacy with adult fears of drug abuse and school violence.

The Safford Middle School nurse and administrative assistant who searched Redding in October 2003 told her to remove her stretch pants and T-shirt. They then directed her to pull her bra to the side and shake it, and to pull out the elastic on her underpants.

They were looking for prescription-strength ibuprofen and over-the-counter naproxen, which another student had suggested might be hers.

"What was missing from the suspected facts that pointed to Savana was any indication of danger to the students from the power of the drugs or their quantity, and any reason to suppose that Savana was carrying pills in her underwear," Souter wrote.

The "combination of these deficiencies was fatal" to the legitimacy of the search, the court concluded. This ruling is likely to clarify for other school administrators nationwide how and when intrusive searches of students might be conducted.

Oh, and guess who thought the school was perfectly within its rights to arbitrarily strip search an honor student based on hearsay evidence?

Justice Clarence Thomas was the only member of the court to decide that the search of Redding was reasonable.

Yeah, not like ol' Clarence there has anything against women. Look, if even Scalia thinks the school was wrong, you're out on the windy, windy limb by your lonesome in legal hell, CT.

Still, I hope this puts an end to zero tolerance in schools. There is a limit, and children in schools are still human beings, not prisoners.

Still Crazy After All These Weeks

It's nice to know that with all the chaos going on this summer in the economy and in Iran and the middle East, Michele Bachmann's delusional rants are disturbingly consistent.



Don't ever change, and I mean that.

Default, Cali Style Part 2

Martin Weiss of Weiss Research says that California defaulting on its $59 billion in debt is "unavoidable".

In a new report, Weiss has some rather blunt advice for California muni investors: "Sell all California paper now!" His reasoning? California is facing a $24 billion budget gap with no obvious way to close it.

The state has appealed to Washington for a federal bailout, but it got a cool response from the Obama Administration. The next step is draconian cuts in state services and payroll, but Weiss says that will only deepen the "depression" in California, where the unemployment rate is 11.5%, by further cutting into tax revenue.

Asked to put odds on California defaulting on its $59 billion in outstanding general obligation bonds, Weiss doesn't hedge. "It's unavoidable," he tells Fortune.

If he's right, the impact on investors would be far broader and deeper than Bernie Madoff, General Motors (GMGMQ) or any of the other investment implosions that have occurred over the past year. Municipal bonds tend to be a retail product, which means that those most affected by a large muni bond default are not endowments, banks, or foreign governments but mom-and-pop investors.

A California default would be especially devastating for two reasons: Munis have generally been viewed as a safe haven and California is the nation's largest issuer of tax-exempt bonds. According to Morningstar, assets in California muni bond funds now total $46 billion -- with billions more of California bonds held in national muni funds and individual bond portfolios.

In other words, should California miss a payment, the muni market turns into a chum factory during Shark Week, not to mention California's credit would be through, leaving the state unable to float more bonds without a heavy cost. Everyone out there who invested in California bonds would be holding increasingly worthless paper, and that $24 billion gap would end up growing as tax revenues are eaten up by credit costs.

In other words, California would no longer be a going concern without a bailout. It's not a question of if anymore, but when. One seventh of the population of America and 55 electoral votes will have long memories of internal state politics, but the national reponse to Cali's current disaster may have a much larger impact on everyone.

Even Republicans aren't going to write off California. They may not want to bailout, but you'd better believe they'll have to give one out.

If It's Thursday...

Jobless claims and continuing claims actually went back up from last week to 627,000 and 6.74 million, respectively. Not good. The new normal is still pretty bad. Here's the killer part of the article:

Millions of Americans also are receiving jobless benefits through a federal extension enacted by Congress last year. For the week ending June 6, more than 2.4 million people received benefits under the extension, which adds 20 to 33 weeks on top of the 26 weeks typically provided by states.

About 288,000 people also are receiving benefits under state emergency programs, bringing the total jobless benefit rolls to nearly 8.8 million that week. The extended benefits data lags initial claims by two weeks.

So yeah, more and more people are falling into those unemployment benefit extensions and state emergency fund black holes.

It's only going to get worse, too.

Facing The Consequences

While many of us are struggling just to keep it together month after month, the news this summer in London's financial community is BAB...bonuses are back.

BAB stands for Bonuses are Back, and its arrival in the lexicon of the Square Mile is evidence that bankers are once again looking forward to bumper payouts, just eight months after the sector faced meltdown and governments worldwide were required to prop them up.

It is universally accepted that the vast rewards available to bankers for taking huge risks were the root cause of the crisis, but nevertheless Goldman Sachs's 28,000 staff – 5,400 of them in London – are now looking forward to the biggest payouts in the bank's 140-year history. Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Barclays Capital, JP Morgan and Morgan Stanley are also anticipating bumper profits.

Even Royal Bank of Scotland, which is now 70% owned by the UK taxpayer and was supposed to restrict the way it pays bonuses, is back in bonanza mode. In March, a key executive was awarded millions of shares and options, already worth more than £8m. This week it emerged that the new chief executive, Stephen Hester, has a £15m pay package.

Just months after showing staff the door there's a hiring frenzy in the investment banks. Business is booming – in no small part as a result of the financial chaos caused by the bankers. The bond markets are hectic as a result of governments' need to finance their deficits, while economic problems have created (profitable) volatility in the foreign exchange markets. Even guaranteed bonuses have made a comeback.

And of course they have the money to do this. We gave it to them through counter-party deals. We spent tens of billions bailing out the likes of AIG, who turned around and gave that money to the banksters. They are having the best year on record in 2009. They're driving up yet another massive bubble in the markets to try to make the green.

They've gone right back to the same behavior that created the collapse in the first place, because they know if this current bubble pops, the world's governments have no choice but to bail them right back out again or face the complete financial ruin of the globe. The time of Permanent Moral Hazard is upon us.

Banks are right back at the gambling table, only this time they have taxpayer money. They'll keep it all, too. Billions and billions in free taxpayer money to make massive profits and to keep playing the game, that's all that matters now.

We exist to pay the banksters to make stuff up to get rich from. The rest of us are just peons and serfs...and nobody dares to cross the feudal lords that run the world.

And when this bubble pops just like all the others, then what? When what little middle class wealth is decimated by this new bubble and Americans have nothing...then what?

StupidiNews!

• Iranian protests to honor those who have died have been postponed from today as the crackdown continues.
• Spanish lawyers are still looking to proceed with the prosecurtion of Bush officials for war crimes.
• California's massive budget shortfall may lead to the state soon issuing IOUs instead of checks.
• Irish banks face nearly $50 billion in losses over the next year due to the Celtic Tiger's collapse.
• A new study shows the more you tweet, the more you buy music on the net.

Zandar's Thought Of the Day

Which is more "dead" politically after the events of the last week:

• Mark Sanford's 2012 presidential candidacy
• President Obama's policy towards the current Iranian regime
• The Waxman-Markey Bill (American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009)
• Health care reform that includes a public option

My inner cynic says not a one is a going concern right now, frankly.

Appalachian Trail Seems Like An Odd Name For A Mistress, Must Be Portuguese

Mark Sanford: Ditched his security detail, flew to Argentina, didn't inform his Lt. Gov where he was going, had his staff lie to everyone about it, oh, and cheated on his wife, too.

South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford admitted Wednesday, amid speculation over his whereabouts for the last several days, that he has been engaged in an extramarital affair with an Argentinian woman.

"I've been unfaithful to my wife," Sanford told a news conference in Columbia, the state capital. "I developed a relationship with what started as a dear, dear friend from Argentina."

His voice choking at times, Sanford apologized to his wife and four sons, his staff and supporters, and said he would resign immediately as head of the Republican Governors Association. The affair was discovered five months ago, Sanford said.

The South Carolina governor had not been seen in public since June 18. When questioned, Sanford's staff had told media outlets that he was hiking in the Appalachian Trail. But Sanford was spotted Wednesday in Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport.

The South Carolina governor said he had been in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

You stay classy, Republican presidential hopefuls!

Sarah Palin wins the GOP nomination by default in 2012 because she's literally the only Republican not thinking with the wrong head.

[UPDATE 3:36 PM] As BooMan says, the affair isn't the problem, but leaving the state with no contingency plan and no contact info in case an emergency happened most certainly is. It quite frankly amounts to dereliction of duty of the office of the executive...an impeachable offense.

Home Is Where You Hang Your Hat

Via CalcRisk comes this disturbing WaPo article on the fact that about a million American homeowners are months, in some cases over a year behind on their home payments...but the banks can't or won't foreclose.

The backlog of seriously delinquent mortgages, which so far affects about 1 million borrowers, is a shadow over hopes for a rebound in the nation's housing markets. It masks the full extent of the foreclosure crisis and threatens to depress prices even further just as some parts of the country are hinting at recovery. For lenders, it could portend even more financial losses tied to the mortgage meltdown.

"It just means foreclosure rates are going to keep rising," said Patrick Newport, an economist for IHS Global Insight.

Rising mortgage delinquencies were at the root of the recession, and many economists say an economic recovery will be difficult until the housing market recovers and home prices stabilize.

And even though a delayed foreclosure can be a blessing for some troubled homeowners, for others, it simply prolongs the financial distress, leaving them on the hook for the condition of the property. Even if they move out, they cannot move on.

"I have even begged them for a foreclosure," delinquent mortgage-holder Charlotte Jensen said. When she realized she couldn't save her Glen Allen home last year, she filed for bankruptcy, packed up her family and moved out. Nearly a year later, Bank of America has yet to take back the home.

During the first quarter of this year, the share of all homeowners seriously delinquent on their mortgage but not yet facing foreclosure more than doubled to 3.04 percent, or about $227 billion in loans. There was a total of $97 billion in such loans during the same period in 2008, according to Inside Mortgage Finance. In more prosperous times, the rate is much lower -- it was less than 1 percent in the first quarter of 2007, according to the industry publication.

Some of the backlog reflects the inability of lenders to keep up with the swelling rolls of delinquent properties.

"Lenders are having an immensely difficult time handling the capacity. They are torn between loan modification, short sales, foreclosures, and they are finding they can't do all these things at once, and do them well, so we're seeing a lot of things falling through the cracks," said Howard Glaser, a housing industry consultant and a housing official during the Clinton administration.

And let's face it, when banks foreclose they not only have to write up the home loan as a loss , they have to then take the loss on the property as the value continues to fall. The banks actually save money by not foreclosing immediately. They're waiting for the housing market to turn around too. So much of their assets are the 30-year loan variety, foreclosings of this magnitude only cost the bank more and more.

So yes, millions of people in America are now living mortgage free. Everyone is trying to sweep the housing crash under the rug, and the problem is the rug is no longer big enough to hide the train wreck anymore. When the townships, cities, counties and states come looking for property tax revenue from these limbo homes, this is going to detonate. The housing numbers should be significantly worse than they are, the only reason they are not is because banks are overwhelmed by the backlog of foreclosures.

And it'll only get worse.

Hence The Need For The Plan

Doug at Balloon Juice looks at some depressing campaign numbers for the GOP:

Reading an annoyingly titled but interesting piece about the next election cycle, I came across this interesting tidbit, which I hadn’t seen before:

As The New York Times’ John Harwood recently noted, McCain won the same percentage of the white vote that Ronald Reagan did in 1980 — and lost.

Reagan and McCain each won 55% of the white vote.

Here’s something else interesting: Bush won 58% of the white vote in 2004. If McCain had won 58%, he still would have lost badly. If he’d won 65% of the white vote, the race would have been essentially a tie.

And yet the GOP is doing everything it can to alienate non-white voters, particularly blacks and especially Hispanics. It's still the same GOP from 1980. The country just changed.

A majority of the white vote no longer guarantees a win, that's been true for some time now, but even a two-thirds majority of the white vote is no guarantee anymore for Republican presidential candidates.

Any wonder then why the GOP is still fixated on limiting the vote of minorities through state-level voter ID laws?

South America, South Carolina, What's The Diff?

South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford went on a nice week-long vacation to Buenos Aires from his recent troubles, which is fine...he's a state employee after all.

Only he didn't tell his wife or pretty much anyone where he went, and his staff lied and said he was hiking the Appalachian Trail. The family man vanished for week over Father's Day weekend, and didn't even tell his family where he had gone. It was a "last minute" thing.

Sanford's whereabouts had been unknown since Thursday, and the mystery surrounding his absence fueled speculation about where he had been and who's in charge in his absence. His emergence Wednesday ended the mystery.

Sanford, in an exclusive interview with The State, said he decided at the last minute to go to the South American country to recharge after a difficult legislative session in which he battled with lawmakers over how to spend federal stimulus money.

Sanford said he had considered hiking on the Appalachian Trail, an activity he said he has enjoyed since he was a high school student.

"But I said 'no' I wanted to do something exotic," Sanford said "... It's a great city."

You know, I'm thinking that's a silly, silly thing to lie about, and the whole thing is about as fishy as an Atlantic City mermaid convention.

[UPDATE 10:33 AM] TPM is reporting Sanford will hold a press conference at 2 PM. Odds of his wife being at his side after he, you know, ditched her and didn't tell her he was in Argentina for a week? Not real good I'm thinking...then again, it's possible the entire Sanford family will be there. If that's so, then things are about to get Jon & Kate interesting.

It Takes A Village...

...to descend into self-parody like this.



As the kids on the internets would say, "It's meta."

Cap And Trade Goes To The House

Nancy Pelosi has scheduled a Friday House vote for climate change legislation (the Waxman-Markey Bill) and remains confident it can pass.

The bill aims to cap greenhouse-gas emissions at 17% of 2005 levels by 2020 and at roughly 80% by 2050, creating a market for companies to buy and sell the right to emit carbon dioxide and other gases. It also mandates a new renewable electricity standard and establishes new national building codes.

It would mark the first time that either of the two chambers of Congress have voted to impose mandatory reductions in greenhouse-gas emissions -- a goal President Barack Obama wants to achieve before a round of international climate talks in December in Copenhagen.

Mr. Obama on Tuesday said the House climate bill is "extraordinarily important for our country," urging House members "to come together and pass it." The president said it would create millions of new "green" jobs that can't be shipped overseas.

Mr. Obama also sent his top cabinet officials, including his Energy, Interior, Transportation and Labor secretaries, around the country to gather public support.

The real news however is what Henry Waxman gave to farm country Dems and Agriculture Committee chair Colin Peterson. Peterson was blocking the bill and refusing to let it out of committee without major revisions. It looks like Peterson and Waxman cut a deal instead.

On first glance, the last-minute deal that Waxman struck with Peterson doesn't look very appealing from an environmental perspective. For one, the USDA will now get primary oversight over what sorts of agricultural projects qualify for offsets under the cap-and-trade program. The EPA will have an undefined role that the Obama administration will have to determine later. (Basically, the EPA takes a much stricter view of what farm projects—from methane capture to no-till farming—actually reduce carbon.)

Waxman also agreed to exempt ethanol from indirect-land-use analysis for five years. In other words, if corn or soy in the United States is grown for fuel and that, in turn, prompts farmers elsewhere to clear a patch of forest and grow their own corn, well, the EPA can't consider that in its assessment of the impacts of ethanol. Joe Romm deems this a minimal concession, since corn-based ethanol is already exempt from this sort of scrutiny, and newer biofuels like cellulosic ethanol—where this rule could do a lot of damage—are more than five years away anyway. That's the optimistic take, at least

Finally, Waxman consented to grab a sliver of the permit money that was slated for renewable energy and give it over to rural coal generators. This won't affect the overall carbon cap, but it's a pretty sleazy giveaway. On the other hand, Waxman really needed farm-state Dems support (since few Republicans will vote for this bill), so he had little choice.

So, more weakening of the bill, and that should continue through the Senate as well. Coal Belt, Rust Belt, and farm state Dems are going to do everything they can to try to gut Waxman-Markey down to a "voluntary set of suggestions" for proceeding...and we haven't even gotten to the Republicans yet.

It's looking better than it was a few days ago, but still very grim.

StupidiNews!

• America's military newspaper Stars and Stripes is complaining of censorship in Iraq.
• Iranian opposition candidate Mir-Hussein Mousavi is now under "24-hour guard" and cut off from his supporters.
• President Obama has strongly condemned the Iranian regime's crackdown.
• Citigroup has suspended new mortgage activity after discovering paperwork is missing.
• EA's "online service model" of PC games is leaving pirates out in the dark.