Credit where credit is due

A lot of bloggers have been really harsh on Democrats lately. Yeah, it's been deserved, as the wimpiness over health care has been especially painful to watch.

But it's not all gloom and doom. Found this nugget in a story about how wage theft, that is, employers not paying their employees what they're owed, has been on the rise since 2000:

Despite reports from the ground that wage theft is on the rise, the U.S. Department of Labor reported a 25 percent drop in registered complaints from low-wage workers from the start of the Bush administration through 2008, the most recent data available.

A recent Congressional report slammed the Labor Department for frequently failing to investigate or even register some complaints; a bill in the House would extend the federal statute of limitations on some violations to give the department more time to investigate them.

Labor Secretary Hilda Solis has added about 250 wage and hour inspectors, and last week, the department signed an agreement with the New York labor department, Mexican Consulate and several other groups to create a call center that will provide Hispanic workers in the New York area information about their labor rights.

There's a reason why we kicked those bums out of power. Let's hope Harry Reid can remember that. Barack Obama too.

Continue reading Credit where credit is due

Didn't see that coming

Tom Ridge, the first head of the 9/11-inspired Department of Homeland Security, wasn't keen on writing a tell-all. But in The Test of Our Times: America Under Siege...and How We Can Be Safe Again, out September 1, Ridge says he wants to shake "public complacency" over security. And to do that, well, he needs to tell all. Especially about the infighting he saw that frustrated his attempts to build a smooth-running department. Among the headlines promoted by publisher Thomas Dunne Books: . . . was pushed to raise the security alert on the eve of President Bush's re-election, something he saw as politically motivated and worth resigning over.

Well, except that he waited, until a month after the election, didn't he?

Continue reading Didn't see that coming

So much stupid in the world

That i can't keep up.

And over the weekend, the FCC’s Digital TV Transition Ford crashed again, this time during a NASCAR race in Phoenix.

It’s the second time in as many races that the car has been towed off the racetrack. The car also crashed in October at the Martinsville Speedway in Virginia.

The FCC spent $355,000 to sponsor NASCAR driver David Gilliland’s car for three races as part of a broader effort to promote the DTV transition. The decision prompted Citizens Against Government Waste to award Martin with its October “Porker of the Month” for “using taxpayer funds on an unnecessary project, diverting focus from more important telecommunications concerns, recklessly spending without consulting with his peers, and attempting to use his influence to shore up his own political prospects.”

fortunately, FCC Chair Kevin Martin should be out the door when the new administration takes over in january.

Continue reading So much stupid in the world

Ouch

Sales at retailers suffered a record decline in October, government data on Friday showed, as shoppers reined in spending with home prices falling, although plunging gasoline prices also reduced outlays by consumers.

Sales slumped 2.8 percent last month to a seasonally adjusted $363.7 billion, the largest decline since the series began in 1992, the U.S. Commerce Department said. This compared with a revised 1.3 percent fall in September, previously reported as a 1.2 percent decrease.

We were chatting with Councilman Mike Woodard on Shooting the Bull last night and learned that, so far, Durham has not seen any decline in sales tax receipts, although everyone expects that to start showing up by the next quarter. Obviously, we won't be alone when that happens. But who can predict what kind of resources are going to be available at the state and local level to help ride this out? Fortunately, we've got strong leadership in the White House:

Bush on Thursday defended his administration's response to the financial crisis, which has included massive amounts of government assistance to banks and outright government takeovers of the country's biggest mortgage finance companies.

"I'm a market-oriented guy, but not when I'm faced with the prospect of a global meltdown," Bush said in a speech in New York.

He put forward a list of modest reform proposals including making accounting rules more transparent but stopped well short of the global market regulator being sought by some European nations.

Oh, wait.

I think we need a Constitutional amendment for the "move inauguration up to the Monday before Thanksgiving" option.

UPDATE: Good to see Josh Marshall is thinking along those lines, too:

It's a question worth considering in very real terms. How much would things be different if Barack Obama had been sworn in on November 5th? The question, to some degree, gets at the very different policy perspectives of Bush and Obama. But at least as much, it points to how much things might be different right now if we had an actual president in office -- one who had some legitimacy, some level of public approval and, most importantly, knew he'd be able to see his policies through years rather than weeks into the future.

It's no one's fault, per se. It's written into our constitutional structure. But though our real and fundamental problems are profound, I think we're paying mightily for having no captain at the helm at one of the most perilous points in our recent national history.

Continue reading Ouch

Rogue state

WTF?

US helicopter-borne troops have carried out a raid inside Syria along the Iraqi border, killing eight people including four children, Syrian officials say.

The official Syrian news agency Sana said the raid took place in the Abu Kamal border area, in eastern Syria.

It said that American soldiers on four helicopters had stormed a building under construction on Sunday night.

The US says it is investigating. It has previously accused Syria of allowing foreign militants into Iraq.

Syria has summoned the US and Iraqi envoys in Damascus to protest at the raid.

Seriously. WTF?

U.S. military helicopters launched an extremely rare attack Sunday on Syrian territory close to the border with Iraq, killing eight people in a strike the government in Damascus condemned as "serious aggression."

A U.S. military official said the raid by special forces targeted the network of al-Qaida-linked foreign fighters moving through Syria into Iraq. The Americans have been unable to shut the network down in the area because Syria was out of the military's reach.

"We are taking matters into our own hands," the official told The Associated Press in Washington, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the political sensitivity of cross-border raids.

If by "political sensitivity" you mean violation of the UN charter and international laws against, you know, attacking sovereign nations.

Jesus H. Christ in a hot tub, these guys really do want to fuck things up beyond repair.

Late thought: "We are taking matters into our own hands." I thought we had a Commander-in-Chief? Isn't that his job? Since when to "military officials" publicly make foreign policy decisions?

Continue reading Rogue state

Ruh-roh

A draft report by American intelligence agencies concludes that Afghanistan is in a “downward spiral” and casts serious doubt on the ability of the Afghan government to stem the rise in the Taliban’s influence there, according to American officials familiar with the document.

The classified report finds that the breakdown in central authority in Afghanistan has been accelerated by rampant corruption within the government of President Hamid Karzai and by an increase in violence by militants who have launched increasingly sophisticated attacks from havens in Pakistan.

The report, a nearly completed version of a National Intelligence Estimate, is set to be finished after the November elections and will be the most comprehensive American assessment in years on the situation in Afghanistan. Its conclusions represent a harsh verdict on decision-making in the Bush administration, which in the months after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks made Afghanistan the central focus of a global campaign against terrorism.

In case the words aren't clear enough, here's the picture.

You can talk about the surge until the cows come home, but here's the real problem. We've spent $650 billion fighting an unnecessary war in Iraq the past 5 years. That's money we could have probably used for a few other things. And at the end of the day, Afghanistan is going to be as much of a failed state as it was in 2001. Whether the surge worked or not is pretty much irrelevant.

Continue reading Ruh-roh

FCC looking into Iraq War coverage

This is really worth keeping an eye on:

An FCC spokesman confirmed Monday that the commission has asked for information from TV military analysts concerning their possible role in a Department of Defense program to recruit ex-military officers to express support for the Iraq war and other Bush administration policies.

"The [FCC] is looking into the allegations and has sent letters," said the spokesman, who said he did not know how many letters had been sent out.

The commission was asked by some legislators to looks into whether TV stations or networks bear any responsibility for not identifying the analyst's connection to the Pentagon or defense contractors.

U.S. News & World Report said it had obtained a copy of a letter from the FCC to one of the pundits. The FCC declined to make public the letters that were sent in connection with the inquiry.

The Wall Street Journal adds:

The FCC's rules prohibit broadcasters and employees who prepare shows from accepting money, goods or services in exchange for on-air promotion without disclosing that arrangement to viewers or listeners.

Radio broadcasters have mostly run afoul of the FCC's payola rules over the years, but last October, the agency proposed combined fines of $76,000 to two broadcast companies for not telling viewers that columnist Armstrong Williams had received money from the Department of Education in exchange for promoting the No Child Left Behind Act on his shows and other programs.

Continue reading FCC looking into Iraq War coverage

Farce

Act 1 (Late 2007)

President: The fundamentals of our economy are strong.

Advisers: They are strong.

Congress: Yes, they are strong.

President: But the people are not spending enough money.

Congress: We need to stimulate them.

Advisors: Let's give them each 600 dollars to spend.

Congress: Make haste!

President: The fundamentals of our economy are strong.

Act 2 (Summer 2008)

President: The fundamentals of our economy are strong.

Advisors: Yes. They are strong.

Congress: They are strong.

Advisors: But the people have spent their 600 dollars.

Congress: Where has the money gone?

President: That was one helluva Olympics they put on in China. And how about our beach volleyball girls?

Act 3: (Early fall 2008)

President: The fundamentals of our economy are strong.

Candidate McCain: The fundamentals of our economy are strong.

Advisors: Nice strong economy you got here. Be a shame if anything bad were to happen to it, if you get my drift.

Congress: What do you mean?

Advisors: We need 700 billion with a "B" dollars if you want to keep the economy strong.

Congress: That's a lot of money.

Advisors: Here's a taste of what we mean.

Congress: Here ya go. Are you sure this will be enough? We don't have any else.

Advisors: Nobody's sure about nothing. Keep the printing presses running.

President: I'm outta here.

Candidate McCain: Economy? What economy? My opponent is a terrorist.

UPDATE: I swear to God you can't make this shit up:

An official says the administration has decided to pick a key Treasury Department official to be the interim head of its $700 billion rescue effort for financial institutions.

The official said Monday that Neel Kashkari, Treasury's assistant secretary for international affairs, will soon be announced as the interim head of Treasury's new Office of Financial Stability. The official asked not to be identified by name because the selection has not been announced publicly.

The 35-year-old Kashkari is a former Goldman Sachs Inc. banker, the investment giant once headed by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. The new office was created by the emergency legislation enacted Friday to fund the largest government bailout in history.

Continue reading Farce

Two thoughts

1. Rep. John Boehner is an asshole. The problem with the bailout is not what Nancy Pelosi had to say this morning. It's that George Bush and Dick Cheney were working the phones trying to get it passed. Republicans know better than Democrats how toxic those two are, and they're running as far away from them as they can get. If Bush wants this thing to pass, what he should do is have him and Cheney come out strongly against it.

2. Despite all the posturing, the bailout actually does very little to limit the so-called "golden parachutes" that many execs at failing companies are due to receive. It's in their contracts. But you know what? Companies routinely file for bankruptcy protection to get out of contracts they signed with their unionized employees to limit their exposure to health care and retirement fund commitments. Why are CEOs any better than line workers in this regard?

Continue reading Two thoughts

419 spam?

Circulating via email:

Dear American:

I need to ask you to support an urgent secret business relationship with a transfer of funds of great magnitude.

I am Ministry of the Treasury of the Republic of America. My country has had crisis that has caused the need for large transfer of funds of 800 billion dollars US. If you would assist me in this transfer, it would be most profitable to you.

I am working with Mr. Phil Gram, lobbyist for UBS, who will be my replacement as Ministry of the Treasury in January. As a Senator, you may know him as the leader of the American banking deregulation movement in the 1990s. This transactin is 100% safe.

This is a matter of great urgency. We need a blank check. We need the funds as quickly as possible. We cannot directly transfer these funds in the names of our close friends because we are constantly under surveillance. My family lawyer advised me that I should look for a reliable and trustworthy person who will act as a next of kin so the funds can be transferred.

Please reply with all of your bank account, IRA and college fund account numbers and those of your children and grandchildren to wallstreetbailout@treasury.gov so that we may transfer your commission for this transaction. After I receive that information, I will respond with detailed information about safeguards that will be used to protect the funds.

Yours Faithfully Minister of Treasury Paulson

h/t to JP

Continue reading 419 spam?

Cabinet meeting

Bush Cabinet and its allies in the right-wing blogosphere analyze the situation in Georgia:


UPDATE: Perhaps Margaret Dumont should have been considered for the position of Secretary of State:

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has also been noticeably absent on the diplomatic scene, having failed to interrupt her holidays to fly to Tbilisi in support of the Georgian government.

Instead senior State Department official, Matthew Bryza, who oversees the Caucasus region was sent, two days later than planned, to join a joint EU-US mediation effort to win a ceasefire.

Continue reading Cabinet meeting

Memories

The following is a transcript of the August 6, 2001, presidential daily briefing entitled Bin Laden determined to strike in US. Parts of the original document were not made public by the White House for security reasons.

. . .

Nevertheless, FBI information since that time indicates patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York.

The FBI is conducting approximately 70 full-field investigations throughout the U.S. that it considers bin Laden-related. CIA and the FBI are investigating a call to our embassy in the UAE in May saying that a group or bin Laden supporters was in the U.S. planning attacks with explosives.

Continue reading Memories

The Second Amendment makes all the others possible

U.S. federal agents have been given new powers to seize travelers' laptops and other electronic devices at the border and hold them for unspecified periods the Washington Post reported on Friday.

Under recently disclosed Department of Homeland Security policies, such seizures may be carried out without suspicion of wrongdoing, the newspaper said, quoting policies issued on July 16 by two DHS agencies.

Agents are empowered to share the contents of seized computers with other agencies and private entities for data decryption and other reasons, the newspaper said.

DHS officials said the policies applied to anyone entering the country, including U.S. citizens, and were needed to prevent terrorism.

The measures have long been in place but were only disclosed in July, under pressure from civil liberties and business travel groups acting on reports that increasing numbers of international travelers had had their laptops, cellphones and other digital devices removed and examined.

The policies cover hard drives, flash drives, cell phones, iPods, pagers, beepers, and video and audio tapes -- as well as books, pamphlets and other written materials, the report said.

Lovely. I'm expecting an armed insurrection led by the Minutemen and the NRA any minute now.

Continue reading The Second Amendment makes all the others possible

Thanks George

In the spring of 2007, the Dallas Federal Reserve Bank published the graphic just below, as part of an article that attempted to explain how the then current budget projections ($187 billion deficit in fiscal 09, $61 Billion surplus in fiscal 2012) could be met.
Now that we're getting close to FY 09, it's pretty obvious that the "pessimistic projection" most closely tracks reality.

I'm old enough to remember when this shit mattered to people.

Continue reading Thanks George

I thought that the vice president wasn't part of the executive branch?

And if he's not, then how can Bush claim executive privilege for him?

Continue reading I thought that the vice president wasn't part of the executive branch?

"How does our country continue to produce men and women like this?"

The committee cited one exchange between White House political chief Karl Rove and Ron Fournier, then a political reporter for The Associated Press.

In a chain under the subject line "H-E-R-O," Rove replied to an e-mail from Fournier by saying, "How does our country continue to produce men and women like this?"

Fournier replied, "The Lord creates men and women like this all over the world. But only the great and free countries allow them to flourish. Keep up the fight.

The man they were referring to in this case was Pat Tillman, the ex-football player turned soldier whose death by friendly fire in Afghanistan in April 2004 is back in the news these days. Fournier, who is currently the AP's acting Washington bureau chief, has issued an apology that, even by today's minimal standards, is a depressing piece of shit:

"I was an AP political reporter at the time of the 2004 e-mail exchange, and was interacting with a source, a top aide to the president, in the course of following an important and compelling story. I regret the breezy nature of the correspondence."

emphasis mine

You'll recall that both the White House and the Army sought, in the days and weeks following Tillman's death, to portray it as an act of heroism and exploit its propaganda value, despite knowing from the get-go that he had been killed by friendly fire. His family wasn't too happy about that.

Other highlights from the Congressional report on Pat Tillman's death:

In the case of Tillman's April 22, 2004, death, White House officials generated nearly 200 e-mails on the matter the day after, the committee found. Politics seemed to fuel the administration's interest: Several of the e-mails came from the staff of President Bush's re-election campaign, urging Bush to respond publicly.

The White House "rushed" to release a public statement of condolence at about noon on April 23.

But in doing so, the White House violated a military policy enacted into law by Bush himself in 2003, the committee found. The Military Family Peace of Mind Act bars the announcement of a casualty until 24 hours after a family is notified.

. . .

The committee received a flurry of White House e-mails sent as the Bush administration responded to Tillman's death, but no documents about friendly fire. The committee interviewed several top White House officials about the case, but "not a single one could recall when he learned about the fratricide or what he did in response," it said in its 48-page report.

. . .

Speechwriters and fact-checkers expended hundreds of words in e-mail memos trying to confirm that Tillman and his brother Kevin had joined the Army because of the attacks of Sept. 11, but could not do so, because the brothers had rarely or never spoken publicly about it.

Nevertheless, Bush's remarks to the correspondents' association contained what one White House official admitted was a "speculative" statement by Bush: "Friends say that this young man saw the images of September the 11th, and seeing that evil, he felt called to defend America."

White House spokesman Trey Bohn said Monday that officials there cooperated extensively with the committee during its investigation.

"The report contains no evidence that the White House said anything incorrect or misleading regarding the death of Corporal Tillman," Bohn said. "Our thoughts and prayers remain with the Tillman family."

. . .

The committee also looked into the case of Army Spc. Jesse Buryj of Canton, Ohio. It took nine months for his family to learn that his death in Iraq in May 2004 was not the result of an accidental vehicle crash as they were first told. He was killed by fire from U.S. or Polish soldiers in Karbala after a dump truck hurtled through a checkpoint and crashed into the armored vehicle in which he was riding.

Buryj's parents accepted an invitation to meet Bush at a July 2004 campaign rally. They told investigators they had pressed Bush to help them find answers about their son's death, and said Bush agreed to help.

"A few months later, a Bush-Cheney campaign official contacted the family," the congressional investigators found. "Rather than offer assistance, the official asked Specialist Buryj's mother to appear in a campaign commercial for the president. Mrs. Buryj refused."

"How does our country continue to produce men and women like this?"

Good question.

Continue reading "How does our country continue to produce men and women like this?"

Time for a new plan

Because the old one ain't working.

Retail sales barely budged last month as inflation heated up, an uneasy trend that underscores the difficult policy choices faced by the Federal Reserve.

Sales of retail goods and food grew just 0.1 percent in June, according to a report released Tuesday by the Commerce Department, a sign that Americans are reluctant to make big purchases as the effect of the government’s stimulus package begins to fade.

Sales had risen 0.8 percent in May as millions of Americans received tax rebate checks in the mail, but last month showed a steep drop in demand for automobiles, electronic equipment and furniture, among other products.

Consumers spent a large amount of money on one product — gasoline — and little else. Outside of fuel, sales actually dropped last month by 0.5 percent.

The slowdown in spending is a troubling sign for the nation’s economic growth. But the Fed is facing an uptick in inflation as well: a measure of prices paid by businesses and manufacturers rose 1.8 percent last month, more than economists expected.

Continue reading Time for a new plan

Get used to it

From an AP article on the flooding in Iowa:

Authorities knew the aging levee near Birdland, a working-class, racially diverse neighborhood, was the weakest link among the city's levees. A 2003 Corps report called for nearly $10 million in improvements across Des Moines, but there wasn't enough federal money to do all the work.

Ten million bucks. That's half an hour of the Iraq war.

Continue reading Get used to it

Now he tells us

First, Scotty McClellan acknowledges that the Iraq War was a war of choice.

Now George Bush reveals that "(t)his is a difficult and unprecedented task, and we're learning as we go."

It wasn't all that long ago these clowns were proclaiming the end of history, and bragging about how "when we act, we create our own reality."

Now, we're "learning as we go."

Just like fucking kindergarten. January 20th can't come soon enough.

Continue reading Now he tells us

Death knell

This should put the final nail in the coffin of the plans to site a "National Bio and Agro Defense Facility in Butner, or anywhere else in the mainland US for that matter.

The Bush administration relied on a flawed study to conclude that research on a highly infectious animal disease could safely be moved from an isolated island laboratory to sites on the mainland near livestock, congressional investigators concluded in findings obtained by The Associated Press.

The Homeland Security Department "does not have evidence" that foot-and-mouth disease research can be conducted on the U.S. mainland without significant risk of an animal epidemic, Congress' Government Accountability Office said.

. . .

"We found that DHS has not conducted or commissioned any study to determine whether FMD (foot-and-mouth disease) work can be done safely on the U.S. mainland," according to testimony prepared for the committee by Nancy Kingsbury, the GAO's managing director for applied research and methods.

Jay Cohen, an undersecretary of Homeland Security, said in his prepared testimony: "While there is always a risk of human error ... the redundancies built into modern research laboratory designs and the latest biosecurity and containment systems ... effectively minimizes these risks."

Department spokeswoman Amy Kudwa said risk assessments are being conducted at each proposed site to evaluate impacts of hypothetical foot-and-mouth disease releases. The public will be asked to comment on the findings.

The administration based its decision of safe mainland research on a 2002 Agriculture Department study on whether it was technically feasible to do the work onshore.

Kingsbury said there's a major distinction between what is technically feasible and "what is possible, given the potential for human error."

"We found that the study was selective in what it considered," she said. "It did not assess the history of releases of FMD virus or other dangerous pathogens, either in the United States or elsewhere."

It also did not address the dangers of working with infected large animals; the virus can be carried in a person's lungs, nostrils or other body parts, making him or her a possible vehicle for a virus escape. The study also did not consider the history of accidents in laboratories, the GAO said.

The AP reported in April that a 1978 release of the virus into cattle holding pens on Plum Island triggered new safety procedures. While that incident was previously known, Homeland Security officials acknowledged there were other accidents at Plum Island.

The GAO report listed six other accidents between 1971 and 2004.

"These incidents involved human error, lack of proper maintenance, equipment failure and deviation from standard operating procedures," the GAO said. "Many were not a function of the age of the facility or the lack of technology and could happen in any facility today."

The investigators found that the United States only avoided international restrictions after the 1978 outbreak because it was confined to the island.

Continue reading Death knell