President Obama will cancel a planned meeting in Moscow with Russian President Vladimir Putin amid mounting anger over Russia’s decision to allow National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden into the country, the White House said Wednesday.
Obama had intended to visit Russia’s capital and meet with Putin in advance of next month’s G-20 summit in St. Petersburg. But Obama has decided he will not meet with Putin one-on-one — a rare diplomatic snub — and will only attend the G-20 summit.
Category: Politics As Usual
Ka-ching we can believe it
Joan Walsh on all the Obama administration officials who have cashed in.
Here’s a fat cat bragging about rigging IL bond ratings to kill pensions
My guess is, Illinois isn’t the only state where this has happened. They do like to share their successful cons with each other:
Illinois has real problems. However, Fahner desperately hopes the public will not catch on to the fact that states are having difficulty paying out pensions because of the lack of revenue caused by a Wall Street-driven financial crisis and the deep recession it set off, regressive taxes, and the myriad bond scams financiers have already inflicted on states, cities, towns, and municipalities which have triggered funding crises for pensions and other programs. (See ” How Wall Street Fraudsters Plunder Public Finances, And 5 Ways to Fight Back.”)
Fahner has tried a number of dirty tricks to attack pensions in his career. But his most recent admission is absolutely breathtaking in its brazenness: He boasted of working to scam the Illinois bond rating.
During Fahner’s talk to the Union League Club, an unidentified person in the audience suggested that pressuring credit agencies to rig the state bond ratings in order to attack pensions might be a jolly good idea. Fahner gleefully replied that he had already thought about that — and his group has tried it.
Audience member: “Maybe sometimes you gotta be irresponsible to be responsible. If a political solution really doesn’t produce a favorable outcome, maybe you really need a market solution. And a market solution, I don’t mean bankruptcy, I mean actually talking down the state rating even further so the state’s bonds essentially become below investment grade. And it drives up the borrowing cost to the state and all of us to a significant level enough that you really feel the public pressure…”
Fahner: “The Civic Committee, not me, but me and some of the people that make up the Civic Committee… did meet with and call – in one case in person – and a couple of calls to Moody’s and Fitch and Standard & Poors, and say, How in the hell can you guys do this?”
Fahner went on to take credit for downgrades to Illinois credit ratings, saying, “If you watch what happened in the last few years, it’s been steadily down.”
Check out the video at minutes 46:30 to 49:43 for the full remarks on the ratings scam: “ Fahner: Civic Committee helped jaw down state’s bond rating.”
Continue reading “Here’s a fat cat bragging about rigging IL bond ratings to kill pensions”
You know who causes hunger? Lazy nuns.
http://youtu.be/ps2KViAcxi0
Say what? This problem’s a little bigger than a couple of food drives,
I’ll have you know, young man.
Oh, you have to love this. The same Republicans who have declared War on The Poor instead of War on Poverty got a little damned snippy with Sister Simone Campbell when she testified against food stamp and other cuts:
The committee’s ranking member, Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), noted in his opening statement that Ryan’s budget plan calls for converting the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), popularly known as food stamps, into a block grant funded at levels one-third below Congressional Budget Office estimates of anticipated need. (Just last month, the House passed a farm bill that eliminated SNAP from the final version, leaving the Appropriations Committee to find another way to fund the program.)
Campbell’s testimony focused on the “faithful budget” on which NETWORK and other faith groups collaborated—a budget proposal designed to address poverty and other social justice needs.
As the question-and-answer session got underway, it became clear that Campbell’s unusual combination of credentials, combined with her liberal politics, got under the skin of members of what is often described as God’s Own Party. Many of the the Republicans who questioned her felt the need to assert their own religious bona fides before lobbing their rhetorical grenades.
Todd Rokita (R-IN) spoke of his Catholic schooling, while Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) began her questioning by saying, “I was teaching a Sunday school class …” And Reid Ribble (R-WI) began his questioning by mentioning all the many pastors in his family. “Christianity is all about the church reaching out to the poor,” Ribble said. “What is the church doing wrong that it needs to come to government (to fund anti-poverty efforts)?” he asked of Campbell.
Continue reading “You know who causes hunger? Lazy nuns.”
Poor Yertle
I’ve seen this happen before. (Remember Arlen Specter?) All of a sudden, the voters wake up from their long nap and think two things: “Geeze, this guy’s been around forever,” and “It’s probably time for some fresh blood.” Looks like Yertle the Turtle is on his way out:
New poll numbers released Thursday suggested that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is entering his reelection campaign next year facing two perilous obstacles: an electorate that wants him out of office and a viable Democratic challenger. The latest survey from Democratic-leaning Public Policy Polling — conducted on behalf of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC) and Democracy For America and provided in advance to TPM — found Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes, wholaunched her Senate campaign on Tuesday, drawing the support of 45 percent of Bluegrass State voters and narrowly edging McConnell by a single point. Eleven percent of voters said they are undecided. The two liberal groups to commission the poll are both opposed to McConnell.
A slight majority of Kentucky voters — 51 percent — disapprove of the job McConnell is doing, giving the GOP leader an approval rating of 40 percent. PPP has previously identified McConnell as the least popular senator in the country, but the latest poll marks a marginal improvement It marks for a marginal bump since April, when McConnell nursed a 36 percent approval rating. PPP polled 1,210 Kentucky voters on those two questions, and the margin of error is 2.8 percent.
Continue reading “Poor Yertle”
‘Why play by the rules when the game is fixed?’
‘I regret my vote for Stand Your Ground’
Translation: “The NRA lobbyist told me it wouldn’t be a problem.” See how well that worked out?
After reports emerged this week that every single Florida state senator voted to pass what has become known as Florida’s state Stand Your Ground bill in 2005, then-Senate Democratic leader Les Miller said he regretted that vote more than any other he took in the Senate, and didn’t understand the law at the time.
“I’m not at an attorney,” Miller told the Tampa Bay Times. “So we relied on the advice of our staff and the lawyers in the caucus.” That advice, he said, was that the law would allow people to defend their homes and their cars – not to become vigilantes on the streets.
Had he known it would be used in street confrontations, he would not have voted for the bill, he suggested. “People are dying because of the ‘stand your ground’ law,” Miller said. “It was a bad bill.”
News reports and judicial analysis from the time suggest there were warnings about the law’s effects even before the law’s passage. But Miller’s comments reflect disagreement and confusion about the bill during debate, with some insisting it only protected the home and vehicle.
‘We will arrest gay athletes, tourists at Olympic Games’
Since so many of the athletes are gay, this will be a major situation if they try:
‘Gay propaganda’ law co-sponsor says he is unconcerned about a US visa ban, saying: ‘I’ve spoken to US politicians, and they support my stance’
A Russian lawmaker has said the ‘gay propaganda’ law will remain enforced during the Sochi Winter Olympic Games in 2014. Vitaly Milonov, co-sponsor of the ‘non-traditional relationships’ bill, said the government cannot decide when to selectively enforce the law.
It comes as the International Olympic Committee said the Russian government had ‘assured’ them all athletes and spectators will be safe from arrest.
Speaking to Interfax and as translated by GSN, Milonov said: ‘I have not heard any comments from the government of the Russian Federation but I know it is acting in accordance with Russian law.
‘If a law has been approved by the federal legislature and signed by the president, then the government has no right to suspend it. It doesn’t have the authority.’
Covering up
If fracking is poisoning your water, it’s really none of your business:
Officially, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said last year that the drinking water in Dimock, Pennsylvania, was not contaminated by natural gas extraction involving hydraulic fracturing (fracking). However, an internal EPA document obtained by the media contradicts this assertion, raising questions over why officials declared the water was safe to drink.
Residents of Dimock had complained for years that nearby gas drilling had polluted their wells. These complaints prompted the EPA’s mid-Atlantic field office to test the water for 64 homes.
Agency leaders in Washington later announced that nearly all of the samples came out clean.
But an EPA PowerPoint presentation obtained by the Tribune/Los Angeles Times Washington Bureau reveals that EPA on-site staff members informed its Washington headquarters that several wells had been contaminated with methane, manganese and arsenic, and that gas drilling was the likely culprit. The determination was based on studies conducted over the course of a four- to five-year period at the site.
The document concluded that “methane and other gases released during drilling (including air from the drilling) apparently cause significant damage to the water quality.” The presentation also stated that “methane is at significantly higher concentrations in the aquifers after gas drilling and perhaps as a result of fracking (hydraulic fracturing) and other gas well work.”
More hippie punching
Mr. President, you don’t have to worry about how to pay your rent or where your next paycheck is coming from, so you have the luxury of thinking Larry Summers is a great guy! The rest of us don’t:
WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama gave a “full-throated defense” of Larry Summers in a closed meeting with House Democrats Wednesday, according to a lawmaker in the room, but said he’s nowhere near making a decision on who will be the next Federal Reserve chairman.
Summers, along with Janet Yellen, are reportedly the top contenders for the Fed post. White House adviser Dan Pfeiffer said Wednesday that no decision will be made until the fall, but that hasn’t stopped people from speculating about the frontrunner.
During Wednesday’s meeting, one Democratic lawmaker, who requested anonymity, said the president became agitated and rose to Summers’ defense in response to Rep. Ed Perlmutter (D-Colo.) walking up to the microphone and simply saying, “Larry Summers. Bad Choice.”
In paraphrasing Obama’s response, the lawmaker said the president replied, “Hey, don’t talk sh*t about him because he’s actually a pretty good guy. And then he said, ‘If somebody talked sh*t about you like that, I’d defend you too.”‘ (The lawmaker added that Obama didn’t use the expletive.)
Continue reading “More hippie punching”