Last Call

Fittingly, a Last Call from last night's Last Word as Lawrence O'Donnell explains what Obama is up to on the debt ceiling, why Boehner is screwed, and why Obama is winning.



The Republicans have been exposed. The "most masterful rope-a-dope in history" has the Republicans, and especially Orange Julius, staggering around the ring wondering how they lost this. Now we're seeing Republicans say publicly that they will no longer negotiate, that they will walk out of the room, that they would rather destroy the economy than agree with Obama.

The country is turning on them now. They have nothing. And when they realize that 100% of the blame for a debt ceiling meltdown will be on them, it's over, just like last December. They will be disarmed and dismissed.

Yeah, Obama knows what he's doing.  Today he upped the pressure exponentially by telling CBS News that he can't guarantee Social Security checks will go out after August 2.

President Obama on Tuesday said he cannot guarantee that retirees will receive their Social Security checks August 3 if Democrats and Republicans in Washington do not reach an agreement on reducing the deficit in the coming weeks.

"I cannot guarantee that those checks go out on August 3rd if we haven't resolved this issue. Because there may simply not be the money in the coffers to do it," Mr. Obama said in an interview with CBS Evening News anchor Scott Pelley, according to excerpts released by CBS News.

Advantage:  Obama.  That noise you heard is Sen. Mitch McConnell stabbing Orange Julius in the back and testing out his white flag waving arm.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has proposed creating an escape hatch for Congressional Republicans, who have put themselves in a box by threatening not to raise the national debt limit if Democrats don't agree to trillions of dollars in cuts to popular social programs.

The plan is designed to give President Obama the power to raise the debt limit on his own through the end of his first term, but to force Democrats to take a series of votes on the debt limit in the months leading up to the election. This would stave off the threat of defaulting on national obligations, but keep the charged issues of debt and spending at the center of political debate for months.

And once again Obama is the baddest mofo in the room.  Brian Beutler argues that the real target is Grover Norquist's hold on the GOP:

Right now, whether he knows it or not, President Obama has a chisel resting at the most vulnerable point of contact between Grover and the GOP, and, if he's willing to commit, a hammer hovering threateningly above it.

He knows Congress has to raise the debt limit, and he seems to truly believe Obama won't let them do it without offering up new tax revenue -- and that would mean forcing Grover into early obsolescence. Taking that as a given, would he rather see the GOP cave in a way that renders him meaningless, or cave in a way that preserves the power of the "pledge." I totally understand his thinking here.

The second the GOP breaks Grover Norquist's no taxes pledge, he is through.  And nobody knows that more than Grover Norquist.

Well, except for one Barack Obama, it seems.  Once again, Obama has the GOP right where he wants and needs them.

Greek Fire, Part 39

The second I in PIIGS is Italy (Portugal, Ireland, Greece and Spain are the rest) and the Greek Fire that swept Europe over the weekend in the wake of Greek bailout talks falling apart with the reality of a partial default looming has now spread to engulf the Italian economy.  Wary European investors have turned on Italy and are giving the boot-shaped country the boot.

Political soap operas in Italy — especially those featuring Mr. Berlusconi — are nothing new. Nor do they usually matter much to financial markets, even after the debt crisis hit Europe. The widespread problems in Italy’s economy, which has been sluggish for the better part of a decade, also rang few alarm bells.

What’s more, Italy’s banks are sound; they never speculated in a housing bubble. The current annual budget deficit is low, at about 4.6 percent of gross domestic product. And while Italy issues the largest amount of bonds of any euro zone country, Italians own about half the debt, making it less vulnerable to the follies of financial markets.

But with interest rates rising, Italy’s economy is not growing fast enough to cover an accumulated debt load of 120 percent of gross domestic product, the second-highest in Europe, after Greece. The International Monetary Fund expects growth to pick up only slightly, to 1.3 percent in 2012.

In a sign of how quickly things have turned against the country, the stock market regulator imposed emergency rules on Monday against speculation after shares in Italian banks slumped for a fifth consecutive session. The cost of insuring Italy’s sovereign debt against default surged to a record high, and the interest on its 10-year bond leaped to a record 5.67 percent.

While that is still well below what Greece pays, analysts say Italy will have serious problems if its borrowing costs exceed 6 percent.

“Italy is a banana republic that didn’t depend so much on foreign capital in the past, but now it does, and markets are less forgiving,” said Daniel Gros, the director of the Center for European Policy Studies in Brussels. “Italy is in the danger zone; that is quite clear now.” 

Italy has so far avoided the problems that have ravaged Greece, Ireland and Portugal.  But if Italy goes down, the rest of the Eurozone goes with it...and most likely the weakened global economy will be susceptible as well.

Still, if the crisis were to take hold in Italy, the problems for the euro union would dwarf all others to date. European banks have total claims and potential exposures of 998.7 billion euros to Italy, more than six times the 162.4 billion euro exposure they have to Greece, according to Barclays Capital. European banks have 774 billion euros of exposure to Spain and 534 billion euros of exposure to Ireland.

In the United States, banks are also more exposed to Italy than to any other euro zone country, to the tune of 269 billion euros, according to Barclays. American banks’ next biggest exposure is to Spain, with total claims estimated at 179 billion euros.

But at the end of the day, “If Italy goes, it’s no longer a domino,” said Mr. Gros, the analyst in Brussels. “It’s a brick.” 

The Greek bailout falling apart last weekend has now left Italy vulnerable, and should they crack, the dam will be truly burst.  The Greek Fire...it just keeps burning.

The Twenty-Seven Percent Solution: Climate Change Edition

A new Harris poll shows that in just four years, the number of Americans who believe that humans are causing global climate change has dropped from 71% in 2007 to just 44% now.

Only 44 percent say they "believe the theory" that carbon dioxide emissions are warming the Earth, down from 51 percent in 2009 and 71 percent in 2007, but most movement has been into the "not sure" column.

The online poll of 2,163 adults was conducted June 13 through 20. Harris does not give margin-of-error figures. 

According to the poll itself, 44% believe it exists, 28% do not, and 28% are now not sure.  That "doesn't believe humans cause climate change" number has been around that magic 27% for a while now.  But nearly all of change in the polls over the years since 1999 has come at the expense of people who used to believe that humanity is responsible for climate change increasingly falling into the "not sure" category.

Enough anti-science propaganda has been deployed against the issue of global climate change that the clear majority of Americans who believed in it has now fallen to a mere plurality, and one that is fading fast.  America's energy companies couldn't be happier, either.

Best part of that Harris poll?  Americans overwhelming believe there are more natural disasters now than just a few years ago, including weather related disasters like tornadoes, hurricanes, and blizzards.  They just don't believe that humans have anything to do with causing it, or are increasingly unsure.

In other words, the climate change denialists are winning big time by muddying the waters.  And the longer we do nothing out of inertia, the worse it will get.

Exciting New Horizons In Obama Derangement Syndrome

Michelle Obama had a burger, fries, and a Diet Coke at Shake Shack in DC yesterday.  Not only is this Washington Post worthy news, that came as a surprise to some, but it makes her an elitist socialist pig who ate a meal that required two hand trucks to deliver, making her a big hypocrite, so let's get back to pretending what a hottie she is.

Boy remember eight years of people telling Laura Bush that she was fat and hated Christians and bought shoes and was way above her station and also basically the worst person on Earth?

Oh wait, sorry, all Wingers hating on Michelle Obama again.  My bad.  Hey, she should just toughen up and take the abuse like Laura Bush...never had to put up with.

Dropping The Ball... Twice

It's a huge deal when phones are hacked by NOTW,  but not too long ago we found out Michigan cops
are going through phones without permission with barely a blip.  On multiple occasions, cops have helped themselves to private data without permission or a warrant.  Obama has failed to give back our right to a warrant before being digitally snooped in the name of the war on terror.  Our government managed to take away a very important right and never answered for it.  We're all subject to search and seizure without protection, in an age where our digital actions can be forever recorded.  Nobody is stupid enough to believe that that protection will ever be reinstated.  We looked to Obama to uphold the people's rights and he failed us.  Shame on him.

NORML (National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws) sends an intelligent and compelling editorial to CNN right as the federal government issues a memo stating that large grow operations sanctioned by state government are not above prosecution.  There seems to be some debate as to what may be in the works right now, but it is clear this is coming to a head, and states are requesting the right to decide for themselves how to handle one of the largest cash crops in the nation.  Still, Obama has dropped the ball here as well in my opinion.  There is a chance for him to strike the final blow in the war on drugs and undo a lot of bad karma.  A laundry list of wrongs can be resolved upon legalization (overcrowded jails and medicinal benefits come to mind) and I fail to see where the opposition provides anything stronger than maybes and personal judgment when it comes to reasons. I'm sorry, the legalization argument just makes more sense to me.  Obama has dodged the bulk of the subject.  Instead, he has opted to put the money in the hands of criminals and let the states and feds squabble about rights and jurisdiction.

The man isn't perfect and I realize it.  Here are two huge opportunities to set things right and leave a good mark in history.  There is still time, but I have no faith these mistakes will be corrected.

Were Those Hot Dogs Made Of Gold?

INDIANAPOLIS - The Indiana Court of Appeals says a department store wasn't justified in firing a worker who took two leftover hot dogs from a company picnic, so it must pay him unemployment benefits.

The court ruled Thursday in the case of Nolan Koewler, who was fired from a Dillard's store in Evansville a year ago.

Dillard's hosted a Fourth of July cookout for employees. Afterward, a manager ordered the leftovers stored in a break room freezer until Labor Day.

The next day, Koewler took two hot dogs and ate them, an act caught on surveillance video. He claimed he never heard the instruction to save the hot dogs, and the three-judge panel sided unanimously with him.

I am amused and horrified.  I'd hate to see how Dillard's handles an actual problem.  Also, who freezes and reserves HOT DOGS?  Are they so cheap they won't part with a few cents in recycled meat parts?  Yeah, I think it's safe to say it wasn't worth ruining a career for no matter how you look at it.

Red State Of Denial

Steve M. makes a great catch here:

Some data accompanying an article in the business section of The New York Times:

Note what's measured here: government payments as share of personal income. As the article notes,

Close to $2 of every $10 that went into Americans' wallets last year were payments like jobless benefits, food stamps, Social Security and disability, according to an analysis by Moody’s Analytics.

So the national average is nearly 20%, and in many states the portion is well over 20%, as shown. And note that of the 12 states listed, 8 voted Republican in the 2008 presidential election and 10 voted Republican in 2004.

In other words, should Republicans destroy the economy and trigger a collapse with the debt ceiling to cut off those evil parasitic "welfare states" it's those "coastal liberal bastions" of West Virginia, Kentucky, Ohio, Tennessee, and Mississippi who are going to suffer the most, because surprise, those are the states where people are taking the most government aid.

And as it is with Republicans refusing to expand unemployment benefits and insisting on trillions of dollars in immediate cuts in social programs, these states are going to be the ones hurting the most anyway.  And they'll blame Obama and all those "liberal welfare queens" while red states continue on the government dole.

Gotta love it.

It Pays To Be Insane

Iowa has lost its mind, via John Cole.

Rep. Michele Bachmann has been gunning for the support of Iowa voters, the first in the nation to vote for their party’s presidential nominees, and it looks like her efforts may be paying off. 

The conservative congresswoman finished first among the GOP presidential candidates in a poll released today by The Iowa Republican, a blog which bill itself as News for Republicans, by Republicans. Bachmann received support from 25 percent of likely Iowa caucus-goers. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney received 21 percent, putting Bachmann’s lead within the poll’s 4.4 percent margin of error.

In other words, Michele Bachmann has gone crazy, had her husband call gays "barbarians" and then it broke that he was trying to "cure the gay", then she signs a pledge that includes the delightful fallacy that is "black people were better off under slavery because more had two parents than now."

For this, she is rewarded with the lead in the Iowa caucus polls.  I have to tell you, the other 75% of the Republicans in Iowa?  Your party has gone insane.  If we have really gotten to the point where Michele Bachmann is a viable candidate for anything other than "Craziest Person in America" then we deserve the country's destruction, because there is no saving us from ourselves at that point.

Playing For The Farm Team

Finally, somebody in the intelligence community is going to the source of every piece of up-to-date knowledge in the universe for the power of predictive crisis points:  asking people the internets!

On Friday, Applied Research Associates, Inc (ARA) will launch the Aggregative Contingent Estimation System (ACES), a website that lets members of the public test out methods to crowdsource intelligence predictions. Funded by Iarpa, the intelligence community’s advanced research shop, ACES invites users to try their hand at making predictions and sharpening up their forecasting skills. The resulting data, ARA and Iarpa hope, will let spooks find out if the crowd can build a better crystal ball for the intel world.

It’s called Aggregative Contingent Estimation System (ACES) and it’s the spy agencies’ attempt to tweak traditional crowdsourcing methods build a better crystal ball and help analysts sharpen their skills.  Funded by Iarpa and built by Applied Research Associates, Inc (ARA), the project will test out crowd-based forecasting for the intelligence community by testing its methods out on a website. That site opens to the public this Friday.

“We’re trying to make good use of everybody’s individual opinions and trying to determine what aspects of them might be important and would lead to a good forecast,” says Dr. Dirk Warnaar, the principal investigator for the ACES project at Applied Research Associates.

 

The idea behind tapping into collective intelligence is simple: There’s bits of useful information distributed among the members of diverse crowds, so aggregating their judgments should yield a better answer — better even than experts’ — to a particular question.

But ARA is looking to do something just a little different from traditional crowdsourcing methods. While many similar tools assign equal weight to participants’ inputs, ACES will be looking for the most accurate predictors over time and weighting their judgments more heavily than other users.

So nice to know that America is now using "ask the audience" for advice on strategic intelligence.  Judging from the kind of folks I see on the net daily, I can't possibly imagine how this could ever go wrong.  Although, they probably should think about hiring the people who end up providing the most accurate analysis.

Hey, it might work.  Do I want to base serious national security decisions on it?  Not so much.

StupidiNews!

• The half-brother of Afghan president Hamid Karzai was shot and killed by one of his bodyguards, according to Karzai.
• Former Florida Congressman Alan Grayson announced he is seeking his old House seat in Orlando that he lost last year.
• A number of police reports show GOP Rep. Michele Bachmann has been involved in several odd incidents.
• Networking hardware giant Cisco Systems says it will cut up to 10,000 additional jobs by the end of August.
• A Florida judge has ruled online storage site Hotfile is not in direct violation of digital copyright law, but the site still faces other charges.

Last Call

And this is why nobody should take my Senator seriously.

The top Republican in the Senate invoked the high-profile acquittal of Casey Anthony on charges she murdered her daughter as a reason to oppose the use of civilian trials for terrorism suspects.

"These are not American citizens. We just found with the Caylee Anthony case how difficult is to get a conviction in a U.S. court," Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said on "Fox News Sunday." McConnell has called on the Obama administration to place suspected terrorists in Guantanamo Bay and prosecute them in the military justice system.

"I don't think a foreigner is entitled to all the protections of the Bill of Rights. They should not be in U.S. courts. They should be at Guantanamo and before military commissions," McConnell said.

To recap, Mitch McConnell sees the "innocent until proven guilty" part of the American justice system as a fatal weakness that means we can't possibly try terrorists in civilian court, even though in a number of high profile cases prosecutors has successfully earned convictions.

The fact that Casey Anthony was found not guilty means you should hate and despise the American justice system and instead just demand show trials where evidence doesn't matter and we can feel good about locking "them" up because we would never, falsely accuse anyone of being a terrorist so really what's the point of a trial?

Because if you know, a terrorist was found not guilty, he would immediately kill everyone you know and we would never be able to stop a terror plot like that before it happened, like we umm, stopped the Times Square car bomb guy and underwear guy and hey, come to think of it Democrats seem to be pretty good at prosecuting terrorist and stopping terror plots in general, it seems.

Mitch of course would never want to remind you of that.

Hacked Off In The UK

The News Corp phone hacking scandal is now getting huge.  It was bad enough when the targets were tabloid subjects, but now we learn the victims included 9/11 victims' families and may have included even former UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown himself.

The Sunday Times is alleged to have targeted the personal information of the former Prime Minister Gordon Brown at the time he was chancellor, a BBC investigation has found.

Documents and a phone recording suggest "blagging" was used to obtain private financial and property details.

The Browns also fear medical records relating to their son Fraser, whom the Sun revealed in 2006 had cystic fibrosis, may have been obtained.

News International is yet to respond.

The company, a subsidiary of News Corporation, owns the Sun and the Sunday Times, and also owned the News of the World which was shut last week amid allegations of phone-hacking and illegal payments to police officers.

Other alleged targets include British royalty, too.  When they weren't hacking phone mails, Murdoch's tabloid reporters were apparently pretending to be government officials or other folks in order to get information on their targets to print. Anything to get the story went for these guys, and now Murdoch has been exposed.  Hell, the guy went after Gordon Brown's infant son just to get a story.

The question now of course is what kind of criminal tricks went on over here in the States.  It's like someone should investigate or something.  Meanwhile, News Corp. shareholders are suing Murdoch for not responding to the scandal fast enough.

The lawsuit, filed by Amalgamated Bank and a group of pension funds, accuses News Corp's board of "failing to exercise proper oversight and take sufficient action since news of the hacking first surfaced at its subsidiary nearly six years ago."

The failure of News Corp's board has led to a "piling on of questionable deals, a waste of corporate resources, a starring role in a blockbuster scandal, and a gigantic public relations disaster," said Jay Eisenhofer of Grant & Eisenhofer, the law firm that filed the suit in Delaware.

The legal complaint is an updated version of action that Amalgamated first bought in March, when they accused Mr Murdoch of "rampant nepotism" for paying 415m pounds for Shine, a UK television production company founded by his daughter Elizabeth. News Corp could not immediately be reached for comment. 

News Corp's shares plunged more than 6.6pc on opening, as investors digested developments on both sides of the Atlantic. 

Things are getting bad for ol' Rupert here.  Very, very bad.

No Dealing On The Debt Ceiling, Part 32

Republican recalcitrance on the debt ceiling has gotten to the point where Steve M. is now saying he doesn't believe a deal will happen.

Sorry, I don't buy this for a second. It's McConnell's job to go on TV and do as convincing an imitation as he can of a reasonable man. More to the point, it's his job to spin any failure to reach an agreement as 100% the Democrats' fault. Elsewhere in the clip posted by Mediaite, he says:

Obviously, the other side, the other political side, controls most of the government. They have the Senate. They have the presidency. You can't get an accomplishment without some kind of bipartisan agreement, and that's part of what the meeting tonight is about, and we hope it'll be successful.

Translation: Who, us? Responsible for anything that goes wrong?

A month ago I would have completely disagreed with him, but he has a valid point.  If the plan was to make 90% of America eat an austerity crap sandwich, we would of had a deal by now.  Instead, I think the GOP has gotten to the point where any deal is unacceptable.  The reaction by the right to Boehner pulling out puts him in an untenable position.

The Powers That Be on Wall Street want a deal.  The Tea Party will eliminate him if there is one.  The Corporate Wing and the Tea Party Wing are at each other's throats, and the Tea Party Wing is winning.  Obama called their bluff again today and dared them to make a deal.

But if we really do get to the point where Treasury then has to take funding from the Departments of Education, Homeland Security, Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, etc to pay SS and Medicare and hundreds of thousands of federal employees get furloughed, well that appears to be a battle the Republicans now seem willing to have.

A terrifying thought, but one that may define the GOP for a long, long time.  I've been convinced for months now that Wall Street would win this battle.  Now I'm thinking that it's very possible that Wall Street will simply bet on a complete economic collapse and let the Tea Party finish the job they started in 2007.  Matt Osborne notes the consequences of that:

Christine Lagarde, the first woman to head the lending institution, said in an interview broadcast Sunday that it would cause interest rates to rise and stock markets to fall. That would threaten an important IMF goal, which is preserving stability in the world economy, she said.

[...]

“If you draw out the entire scenario of default, yes, of course, you have all of that — interest hikes, stock markets taking a huge hit and real nasty consequences, not just for the United States, but for the entire global economy, because the U.S. is such a big player and matters so much for other countries,” she said.

This is what the Tea Party is risking, not just our economy but the world as well, in their quest for political power.  And it's looking more and more like they are willing to force it in order to try to destroy the country in order to "win".  Greg Sargent:

In another sign of the right’s total intransigence on revenues of any kind, the Club for Growth is going up with a new national ad putting Republicans on notice: Hold firm against any tax hikes, or else. 

As I've said before, the dealbreaker for the Democrats is no revenue increases and SS/Medicare cuts.  The dealbreaker for the GOP is a brokering a deal at all.   They don't want one.  They are confident they win without one, so they won't lift a finger to stop the economy from going under.  They'll merely blame Obama. Best part? If a deal doesn't happen?  Well, there's already well-known progressives willing to blame the Democrats too.

Time to start being concerned about this, I think.  George Zornick over at The Nation does have this to add:

Many of the large financial institutions that gave money to Cantor have specifically said the debt ceiling must be raised. Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JPMorgan Chase, said “[i]f anyone wants to push that button ... I think they're crazy.” JP Morgan Chase is among the top-20 contributors to Cantor’s campaign committee and leadership PAC, kicking in $27,800 in the last cycle alone between the company PAC and employee contributions.

An even bigger financial backer for Cantor is KKR & Co., a major private equity firm who's employees gave Cantor $52,600 during the last cycle, making them his fifth-largest contributor. In their first-quarter performance report, KKR & Co. described serious concerns over a failure to raise the debt ceiling.

“[Failure to raise the debt ceiling] could also limit our ability and the ability of our funds and portfolio companies to obtain financing, and it could have a material adverse effect on the valuation of our portfolio companies and other assets held by our funds,” their statement read. “Under such circumstances, the risks we face and any resulting adverse effects on our business, financial condition and results of operations would be significantly exacerbated.”

The money's on the GOP folding.  The crazy is on them letting a default destroy the country.  I don't honestly know which one will win.

School Of Hard Knocks: College Edition

Thanks to massive cuts in state education budgets, America will only continue to fall behind the rest of the world in number of college graduates.

Only one in five of those who enroll in community colleges — and, in some states, barely one in 10 — graduates in three years, while only about half of students who attend universities get their bachelor's degrees within six years, helping drag the United States from first to 10th in the world in the proportion of the population that has graduated from college.


It's a trend that Obama, in a speech on the Macomb campus, promised to reverse. Yet conversations with dozens of experts and reviews of available data show that obstacles on the road to graduation have gotten only greater in the two years since then. Few believe the 2020 target will be met.

"The outlook is not good," says Michael Lovenheim, an assistant professor of policy analysis and management at Cornell University and co-author of a 2010 study that found students are taking more, not less, time to graduate thanks to such things as continued deep cuts in public higher education budgets and services, enrollment increases and steep hikes in tuition that are forcing more students to work.

The study by Lovenheim and his colleagues upended the common contention by universities that graduation rates are falling because students are arriving unprepared. American high school graduates are, in fact, better prepared than ever, it found, but most go to unselective community colleges and public universities where budgets and services have been deeply cut, classes are large, and per-student expenditures are low.

It's gotten to the point that even community colleges are now priced out of reach for Americans.  And Republicans, demanding smaller government and less spending, have only made the situation worse.  American high school students in 2011 simply can't afford college anymore without ending up in massive debt.

And as Republicans continue to demand that we cut spending instead of raise revenues, this problem will only get worse.  America will continue to fall further and further behind other countries, where jobs and companies will go.  Remember that next time someone tells you there's no difference between Republicans and Democrats.

A Pain Most Of Us Will Never Know

Things are so bad in eastern Kenya that mothers are forced to let weaker children die to prolong the lives of the other children, and the infant mortality rate has tripled in the refugee camps.  People are pouring in looking for help, and sometimes the help is too little too late.  Hundreds make it to the camps only to die from chronic starvation and dehydration.

Frequently, they do not want to go - they say they need to forage for food, water and firewood for their other children - often as many as seven or eight - and they cannot afford to be away from their families.

To some mothers, the weak, malnourished child has become a burden and they are prepared to let it die - a sacrifice in order to save their other children.

ontinue reading the main storyAid workers like Abubakar have to negotiate hard with mothers to convince them to change their minds.

 It's hard to fathom survival circumstances so dire.  It's also a reminder that the rest of the world is facing unprecedented losses and increasing hunger.

No Shoes, No Shirt, No Screaming Kids

A restaurant in Monroeville, PA is drawing fire for refusing to serve kids under six because they lack volume control.  The owner sent out a very polite email stating "Beginning July 16, 2011, McDain's Restaurant will no longer admit children under six years of age. We feel that McDain's is not a place for young children. Their volume can't be controlled and many, many times, they have disturbed other customers."


Some are offended.  Many have supported Mike Vuick's right to decide how to run his business, even if they have kids and won't be bringing them there any longer.  I can  understand.  At any rate, he has the ability to decide this for his own business.  I think that should apply to smoking laws as well, because people can choose whether they want to support the businesses and owners could cater to a crowd performing a legal activity.  But there I go again with all my crazy talk.

Justice Has To Work All The Time

Lost this weekend in the debt ceiling news, the final space shuttle launch and the death of Betty Ford comes this story from Mother Jones' Stephanie Mencimer on the case of Jaime Leigh Jones, the ex-KBR/Halliburton contract employee who sued the company over an alleged rape by KBR employees while she was in Iraq in 2005.

The allegations were explosive when they first hit in 2007: A 20-year-old woman named Jamie Leigh Jones alleged that four days after going to work in Iraq for contracting giant KBR in July 2005, she was drugged and gang-raped by fellow contractors. She accused the company, then a subsidiary of Halliburton, of imprisoning her in a shipping container after she reported the rape, and suggested KBR had tampered with some of the medical evidence that had been collected at an Army hospital. The harrowing story has made international headlines. It's been the subject of congressional hearings and has inspired legislation. Jones even plays a starring role in the new documentary Hot Coffee, about efforts to limit access to the justice system.

Jones' charges fell on fertile ground, compounding KBR's reputation as a corporate scofflaw—all the more so when it came out that the firm's contract had included a mandatory arbitration clause intended to block employees from suing it. Jones spent years fighting for a jury trial, and now, six years after the alleged attack, she is finally getting her day in court in a civil suit that accuses KBR of knowingly sending her into a hostile workplace. The verdict could come as early as Thursday. And—in a twist that's likely to shock her numerous supporters—there's a good chance she will lose.

Jones' trial, which started on June 13, is highlighting significant holes and discrepancies in her story. Not only has the federal trial judge already thrown out large portions of her case, evidence introduced in the trial raises the question of whether Jones has exaggerated and embellished key aspects of her story.

None of this means that Jones was not raped in Iraq. But the evidence does undermine her credibility and could create serious doubts in jurors' minds.

And indeed, the jury returned a not guilty verdict Friday in the case.  The evidence in the trial was shaky at best and the jurors deliberated for less than 48 hours before coming back with the verdict.  Mencimer does an excellent job of showing why jurors doubted Jones.  As she says, it's entirely possible she was raped.  But the evidence prevented simply didn't add up.

The funny thing about justice is it has to protect both the defendant and the plaintiff in cases like this.  When the evidence was laid out, there just wasn't enough to find in favor of Jones.

One thing Jones has working in her favor is that her story seems so incredible, her pursuit of justice so sincere, that it's almost unimaginable that she would make it up. After all, why would anyone put themselves through that kind of torture? But KBR and Bortz also have a ready answer to that question. It's The Jamie Leigh Story: How my Rape in Iraq and Cover-up Made Me a Crusader for Justice, the working title of her book.

For years, Jones has been in discussions with book agents, screenwriters, and production companies. In 2008, Paul Pompian, a film producer with dozens of docudrama credits to his name, bought the rights to her story. He says that his company is working on film version of Jones' story and that a book is also in the works. "Frankly, we're waiting for the outcome of the trial," he told me. "We're hoping for a verdict that will give us a third act. Hopefully it will be an outcome that's good for us and the movie and especially for Jamie Leigh." Both the screenwriter and Jones' coauthor were expected to be in Houston watching part of the trial, according to Pompian.

When KBR's lawyers first learned of the book deal, they went to court seeking access to the manuscript and other documents. Jones fought the disclosure, arguing that it would diminish the work's financial value. Jones' lawyers filed a motion with the court declaring that the manuscript was a work of fiction.

And so that third act is now going to be very interesting indeed.  There are such things as false rape allegations.  There are also many that are actual rape that aren't reported.  The whole truth still isn't apparent.  But KBR has successfully defended itself, that much we know.

Blacked Out

The financial crisis and recession of 2007 has all but eliminated the black middle class in America.

Economists say the Great Recession lasted from 2007 to 2009. In 2004, the median net worth of white households was $134,280, compared with $13,450 for black households, according to an analysis of Federal Reserve data by the Economic Policy Institute. By 2009, the median net worth for white households had fallen 24 percent to $97,860; the median black net worth had fallen 83 percent to $2,170, according to the EPI.

Algernon Austin, director of the EPI's Program on Race, Ethnicity and the Economy, described the current wealth gap this way: "In 2009, for every dollar of wealth the average white household had, black households only had two cents."

Since the end of the recession, the overall unemployment rate has fallen from 9.4 to 9.1 percent, while the black unemployment rate has risen from 14.7 to 16.2 percent, according to the Department of Labor.

"I would say the recession is not over for black folks," Austin says. He believes more black people than ever before could fall out of the middle class, because the unemployment rate for college-educated blacks recently peaked and blacks are overrepresented in state and local government jobs that are being eliminated due to massive budget shortfalls.

Do you want to know why the GOP's first target after Obama got elected was to eliminate middle-class government jobs at the state and local level?   Now you know.  Eliminate the road to the middle class for blacks and they lose sociopolitical power.  Breed resentment among everyone else.  Government workers are "lazy" and "spoiled".  Government jobs are equivalent to "welfare".  It's jobs where "they" work.  Republicans played the class and race cards perfectly and the results have been the virtual elimination of the black middle class in America in just four years.

Blacks in America have been crushed by the recession.  These numbers are horrifying to the point where I feel physically ill.  And the best part is conservatives now want us to finish the job by abandoning the Democrats or abandoning voting altogether while they in turn do everything they can to keep blacks out of the voting booth through Voter ID laws.

Two percent.  That's the percentage of median household wealth the average black household compared to the average white one.  This is what Wall Street did to black America, they leveled it with bulldozers, took the money, and then said "Sorry, we can't afford to help you anymore.  Go to hell."

This is what the last decade of greed and hatred has done.  It has literally put the middle-class on the block to be sacrificed to the rich, but especially the black middle class is seeing their world crumble.  Gone.  And the Republican Party is doing everything they can to make sure we are never heard from again.

Remember that.  Remember you have a voice.  Use it.

Priority One Alert

If you're wondering what happens to be the number one priority for the Republican Party at this point, Mitch McConnell explained it all to FOX News Sunday host Bret Baier.

Even with the country on the brink of default, the Senate's highest ranking Republican says his "single most important" goal is to make Barack Obama a one-term president.

"The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president," Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told National Journal's Major Garrett in October.

Fox News' Bret Baier asked McConnell Sunday if that was still his major objective.

"Well, that is true," McConnell replied. "That's my single most important political goal, along with every active Republican in the country."

"But that is in 2012," he added. "Our biggest goal for this year is get this country straightened out and we can't get this country straightened out if we don't do something about spending, about deficit, about debt and get the economy moving again. So our goal is to have a robust vibrant economy to benefit all Americans."

So yeah, the economy kinda sort but getting rid of President Blackguard McDarkkenyan, that's the "single most important political goal" of every Republican in the country.  They hate Obama that much.  Getting rid of him is more important than the economy, politically.

If we pay attention to what Republicans say when they accidentally tell the truth, we shouldn't be surprised at the actions that follow.  We shouldn't be surprised that the GOP-led House has blocked every single job measure the Democrats have brought up this year and have put forth zero job bills of their own.

That's because they are now fully invested in wrecking the economy for political gain.  McConnell, my own Senator, just admitted that getting rid of Obama is more important than fixing the economy, and that goes for all active Republicans.  One would almost think that McConnell is threatening the American people with "Get rid of the President or we'll continue to make you miserable."

Priorities, people.  Priorities.

StupidiNews!

• With a week to go before the White House says a deal on the debt ceiling is needed, President Obama plans to address the nation ahead of more negotiations on Monday.
• In India, 35 have been killed and hundreds were injured as two separate passenger train derailments may have been caused by separatist militias.
• Pakistan remains defiant after a US decision to suspend some $800 million in aid to the country sparked by Pakistani cooperation with Al Qaeda.
• Food giant Nestle is buying a 60% stake in Chinese snack maker Hsu Fu Chi for $1.7 billion as the largest food company in the world bulks up its Asian presence.
• A new report shows texting while driving laws have reduced incidents of distracted driving somewhat, but cases of doing so are still rare.