"Unprecedented oil spill"

This Gulf thing is unprecedented. No one could have foreseen this. This is certainly not exactly similar in every way to the Ixtoc I Gulf oil disaster in 1979, down to the failed attempts to deal with the oil, the failed attempts to seal off the the well, and even the company, Transocean. Rachael Maddow explains.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Awwww

According to Sarah Palin "We're all Arizonans now". Which I guess means we all just a tad racist and prefer our cut rate immigration laws to to have the illusion of doing something while adding that special 1930's German tinge that most of our laws are lacking. Hell, we were forced to legalize racial profiling and authorize police to demand your papers and violate the Constitution. You know, because... uhhh... of those... I'm not sure, but I bet the answer is because of Hollywood liberals in Washington.

So, since we're all living just outside Tempe now, I guess we don't find things like this all that funny.

The City of Phoenix -- a convention hot-spot -- is facing a "near economic crisis" caused by lost revenue stemming from organizations canceling events in response to Arizona's controversial immigration law, according to its mayor.
...
"We have an image and public-relations problem of what might be unprecedented proportions," Krietor told the Arizona Republic.

Haw-Haw. Esto es increíblemente divertida. Maybe things will get so bad that Mexico will have to build a wall to keep Phoenix city government officials from trying to sneak over to find work in a city government that has an operating budget.

Sadly this isn't a reality yet, only an early projection based on some early cancellations. But, they estimate that the city could easily lose $90 million this year just because a few conventions might go "maybe tying our event to a hostile political battle and a seemingly racist state isn't the best thing for the International Convention of Dental Drill Assemblers right now... we've been through too much already."

But already the state and the law supporters are crying foul and getting angry about various boycotts. See, this is a freedom of speech/state sovereignty issue. See, they have the freedom to do whatever they want and no matter how morally/ethically/legally/socially reprehensible you find it, you are required to keep money flowing into their state. There's no backlash allowed. That's how freedom works.

So if you can get over Sarah Palin retroactively reassigning your birth to a small hospital just outside of Nogales and the Arizona pride/Mexican revulsion flowing through your veins, take time to pause and laugh at the Copper State. They honestly didn't see stuff like this coming.

Picture of the day

The giant oil slick that covers 1,800 miles of the Gulf of Mexico and is menacing the Mississippi River Delta. It resulted from an explosion 5000 feet underwater on a offshore oil rig and nearly 42,000 gallons a day are being pumped into the ocean. It'll take months to close.

For those of you who are saying "Looks awesome, when will the coastline nearest to me be open to such a massive ecological disaster?" Soon, my friends, soon. Remember?

Who could have foreseen?

I don't want to alarm you, but it seems that illegal spying activities might have taken place in America... in the name of fighting terrorism! New ones, I mean. Not the old ones you already knew about. No, now you have more illegal wiretapping to get mad about, then get madders still when nothing is done about it, before you finally just accept the realities of the country you live in and try to block out the shame with gin and back episodes of Lost. Good times!

The FBI illegally collected more than 2,000 U.S. telephone call records between 2002 and 2006 by invoking terrorism emergencies that did not exist or simply persuading phone companies to provide records, according to internal bureau memos and interviews. FBI officials issued approvals after the fact to justify their actions.

E-mails obtained by The Washington Post detail how counterterrorism officials inside FBI headquarters did not follow their own procedures that were put in place to protect civil liberties. The stream of urgent requests for phone records also overwhelmed the FBI communications analysis unit with work that ultimately was not connected to imminent threats.

Using a shroud of terror fear to break laws, molest civil liberties, spy, and rummage through the last remnants of America's privacy that it hadn't posted on Facebook or drunk texted to an ex? Here, let me drag over this fainting couch and dramatically swoon onto it. The appearance of shock is important, people are watching.

So add "more FBI wiretapping and spying abuses" along with "3 Gitmo murders plus a cover-up" to the ever expanding list of things titled Shit That Will Never Ever Be Prosecuted. Actually, it's not so much a list as it is a short novel. Because going after this stuff would be "looking backwards, not forwards" and besides, these were just one time events and although these one time events seem to happen repeatedly we assume the one time lapses that allowed these one time abuses have been probably fixed. Nothing to worry your pretty little head over.

Goliath vs. an even bigger Goliath

I think we all remember the biblical story of Goliath and Goliath. Where two massive entities come to work together in order to increase their quarterly earnings reports and stranglehold on the information its subjects can view? I think Jesus was in it and there was something about a scorpion riding on the back of a frog in a river or something.

Anyway, such was the pairing of China and Google. But now that partnership is cracking under the weight of obvious conclusions that should have been eminently foreseeable for all. I don't want to alarm any of you, but it seems that China is an intensely oppressive communist regime that likes to control every shred of news or information its citizens try to access. I know that's shocking to you, but it seems that Google didn't know this information either. That's why it was shocked, shocked, to see that China was using all of the information controls and censoring blocks that Google put into its Google China search engine were used to spy on dissidents and businesses. That seems so unlike China. So Google offered an ultimatum: stop censoring information or we'll shut down Google China. Yeah, China's cool with that.

China made clear today that it will ignore an ultimatum from Google to relax internet censorship and reminded all companies that they must abide by state controls of the country’s cyberspace.

The authorities published a half-page statement in the People’s Daily, official mouthpiece of the Communist Party, signalling that Beijing has already decided that its 360 million internet users will have to manage without the world’s most popular search engine.
...
Google plans to stand by its pledge to close its Chinese Google.cn service if the censorship is not lifted.

Who could have foreseen? How was Google supposed to know that all the information it was censoring, websites it was blocking, and monitoring and tracking information it was providing to China was going to be used for nefarious purposes? Censoring the internet for money usually carries with it such humanitarian goals. Who knew that China would try to overstep its already ridiculous internet censorship into trying to find out who was trying to access contraband information and suing that to persecute them? How could the brilliant plan of joint corporate and government censorship all have gone wrong?

C'est la vie. It looks like Chinese citizens won't have a nice user interface to go along with their government approved searches. Plus Google is really going to get some good PR. Because what's better than pulling out of China for ethical and free speech reasons? Not thinking about the ethical and free speech reasons Google went into China and set up a high tech censorship network for, that's what. It's a shame, I had high hopes for a Google China Nexus One phone that not only had a lot of cool apps, but also recorded all your phone calls. Oh well.

Who could have foreseen?

And it's over. Just as quickly as Joe Lieberman said he'd block a bill with a Medicare buy in, it came out just as quickly. No public option, no buy-in, and nothing to replace it. Liberal Seantors walking around glum faced talking about how "things could have been worse". Yeah, I guess Joe could have released a biological agent in the caucus meetings. That would have been worse. In the end Democrats completely roll themselves, furiously piss off their base, capitulate to a man who is going to o this again and again out of spite, and made a health care bill measurable worse in a way that will bankrupt people and get them killed. Who could have foreseen that this would ever happen?

Joe Lieberman has forced his will on the Senate Democratic caucus and the nation as a whole. After the party reached a compromise last week to effectively drop the public option in exchange for allowing 55- to 64-year-olds to buy into Medicare, that compromise is now in doubt.

Lieberman, an independent from Connecticut, told Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) on Sunday that he will block any bill that includes the buy-in. As the 60th vote needed to overcome a Republican filibuster, he can do that.

Following a caucus-wide meeting Monday evening, the measure was all but scuttled.

So why did they finally cave now? We can blame Rahm Emanuel if we want, but that misses the point. He was just carrying out the wishes of a White House that thinks any bill is a good bill and that they have to pas it nowonwnow so they can turn the focus to fucking up a jobs bill in 2010. The greater source of blame falls to the institution of the Senate, which, as presently constructed, is almost useless in terms of addressing large problems. Or small problems. But they do a good collegial, old boys network, circle jerk like no one else.

And so we finally move to the voting... unless Lieberman wants more cut out and is willing to leverage his sociopathic indifference to humans against 59 other Senators again. Unless some other Senator sees this as an opportunity to strong-arm their way into attempting to get whatever they want in the bill. That'll only probably happen. So congratulations, we all have to buy insurance now and the only things that were going to provide competition to the groups that everyone seems to agree are the problem are gone. I'm sure that and wishing will lower prices. Remember to get out a vote for Democrats in 2010!

Who could have foreseen?

Remember that part in the health care debate where the President announced that he had the support of the leaders of pharmaceutical companies to tackle reform and that as a show of good faith they'd be willing to sacrifice $80 billion over 10 years in order to push for reform? In return they got concessions from the White House that everyone pretended weren't agreed to even though there were memos and legislation has essentially borne out that deal.

Wait for it.......it was all a bullshit scam! Who could have foreseen? In return for their pledge to sacrifice $8 billion a year and get their priorities enacted in any reform package, the pharmaceutical companies are going to net nearly $35 billion a year over the next four years....and it'll go up as the years pass. I am shocked. Seriously.

IMS Health, a company that supplies the pharmaceutical companies with sales data, predicts that new health reform legislation -- combined with a projected upswing in the economy -- will result in a net gain of more than $137 billion in total market sales over the next four years. The new assessment was contained in document obtained by the Huffington Post.

Back in March, that same firm projected a compound annual growth rate of -0.1 percent in the period of 2008 through 2013. In October, with the general outlines of health care reform clearly in place, it revised that number to a positive 3.5 percent for over the same period.
...
The structure of health care reform, as IMS goes on to note, will have benefits for the federal government, which could save an estimated $30 billion from 2010 through 2019. ...The real beneficiaries of reform, however, would evidently be the pharmaceutical industry.

Hey, a few nickels fell out their large sack with the dollar sign on it. Be grateful. Just tell yourself the additional 60% in costs we pay for drugs over Canada means we're getting 60% better medicine and getting 60% healthier. Same for the massive price differentials in Mexico. I know the statistics don't bear me out on that one, and its deeply depressing to find out that Mexico can wrangle cheaper drugs than we can, but if you don't this is all going to seem really infuriating.

That's right, pretend. We have good cheap health care in pretend America. Everything's alright in pretend America.

Who could have foreseen?

Human swine Joe Lieberman (I-CT)

Lieberman told reporters today that he would in fact filibuster any health care bill he doesn't agree with--and right now, he doesn't agree with the public option proposal making its way through the Senate.

"I told Senator Reid that I'm strongly inclined--i haven't totally decided, but I'm strongly inclined--to vote to proceed to the health care debate, even though I don't support the bill that he's bringing together because it's important that we start the debate on health care reform because I want to vote for health care reform this year. But I also told him that if the bill remains what it is now, I will not be able to support a cloture motion before final passage. Therefore I will try to stop the passage of the bill."

My oh my. Of course he wouldn't want a public option, I mean it's not like he ever argued for making health care cheaper and try to strive for universal coverage, especially when he was running for re-election as an Independent after he lost the Democratic primary.

What I’m saying to the people of Connecticut, I can do more for you and your families to get something done to make health care affordable, to get universal health insurance.
...
MediChoice to allow anybody in our country to buy into a national insurance pool like the health insurance pool that we federal employees and Members of Congress have. ...It will cover 95% of those who are not covered now, and it will reduce the pressure on rising costs for all the millions of others.

Wait, he argued for expanding and creating more single payer government health care plans in 2006 but feels an even more watered down public option is much too generous and expensive for the peasants in 2009? Not to mention that all the reasons he gives for opposing a public option now are utterly without merit. God, I command you to smite this fuck with a flaming sky rock.

Who could have ever foreseen this waffling, spineless fuckup would to try to stop important Democratic priorities that elections were won on, like health care reform, by not even allowing it to be voted on? Oh, Rachel Maddow:



So glad all these Democratic efforts to placate this spoiled, self-centered egomaniac have engendered such stunning and obvious benefits for the American people.

Crisis averted....for now

Health Insurance Stocks Rise After Defeat Of Public Option Amendments

Shares of companies that operate private health plans turned higher or trimmed losses in afternoon trading Tuesday after a Senate committee rejected an amendment that would have created a government-run insurance option. Humana Inc. (HUM) shares, which had been down earlier, were recently up 1% at $38.41. UnitedHealth Group Inc. (UNH) shares gained 3 cents to $25.83.

Private health insurers have bitterly fought the creation of a public insurance option, fearing that such an option would cut into their profits. Yesterday, Life And Health Insurance News reported that the insurance industry has responded positively to the defeat of the public option amendments. “We are pleased by the rejection of both the Rockefeller and Schumer amendments,” said Tom Currey, president of the National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors. Janet Trautwein, president of the National Association of Health Underwriters, also told the press that her organization is pleased by the failure of the Schumer and Rockefeller amendments.

Whew, that's a relief to hear. We have averted the looming crisis of middling stock growth for insurance companies. I'm glad. I wouldn't want our precious health insurance industry to be unable to grub every dime it has coming to it. I'm just sad the stocks grew so little. 1%? 3 cents? For shame, Wall Street. I can only hope that the stocks went up in the previous days knowing that the amendments were almost 100% likely to be defeated. Still, we're not out of the woods yet. Chuck Schumer still seems optimistic and there's still a danger that a public option could come out of the House/Senate conference committee.

Stay vigilant, otherwise our health care system might have to suffer the indignity of lower quarterly dividend payments, creating insurance options that don't vacuum money out of people's pockets in return for nothing, and *shudder* covering sick people. Hopefully we can still avoid that nightmare dystopian future.

Who could have foreseen?

Sorry to break some bad news to you. But it turns out that our lawless system of rendition and torture may have had a few kinks in it's execution. I'm as surprised as you. But the important thing is that we acknowledge the problems, so that we may better correct them for the next time we decide all of this is a good idea. First problem to fix? Make sure the guys you hire to run your torture program are actual experts, just not two weekend masochists who low bid the project, had "no relevant scholarship", and who had to Google "brutal tactics" and "Chinese communists" and then took notes on what came up.

Jim Mitchell and Bruce Jessen were military retirees and psychologists, on the lookout for business opportunities. They found an excellent customer in the Central Intelligence Agency, where in 2002 they became the architects of the most important interrogation program in the history of American counterterrorism.

They had never carried out a real interrogation, only mock sessions in the military training they had overseen. They had no relevant scholarship; their Ph.D. dissertations were on high blood pressure and family therapy. They had no language skills and no expertise on Al Qaeda.

But they had psychology credentials and an intimate knowledge of a brutal treatment regimen used decades ago by Chinese Communists. For an administration eager to get tough on those who had killed 3,000 Americans, that was enough.

On the bright side, I'm sure these two will be in for a harsh rebuke when the Justice Department decides to only look at low level operatives in the upcoming "comprehensive torture probe". Still this is yet another crushing blow to the belief that the Bush Administration was an evil bunch of Machiavellian plotters, unleashing their brilliantly diabolical plans onto an unsuspecting nation. It turns out they were just cheapskate sadists on a tight time schedule and they proceeded with their colossally reckless notions in the laziest and ham-handed way possible. They were allowed to succeed because of the general lazy cowardice and general incompetence of their supposed overseers in Congress.

Ouch, I'm going to need to sit down. It's always hard to come to grips with the fact that what you thought was a higher class of evil, turns out to be dime store evil mixed in with garden variety stupidity. Talk amongst yourselves.

Who could have foreseen....

The government's "cash for clunkers" program is off to a rousing start, almost immediately running out of money because it was so popular. And why not? Who wouldn't want to get between $3500 and $4500 for turning in their rusted maroon 1980 Acura CL? And what are Americans doing with their new wad of cash they got for their lemon? Throwing a lemon party? No, they're doing what Americans do best: buying foreign cars.

Four of the five top-selling cars in the government's "Cash for Clunkers" program are made by foreign automakers, according to new data released Tuesday by federal transportation officials.
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Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said 157,000 trades had occurred as of Tuesday morning, eating up $664 million of the $1 billion appropriated for the effort.

More than 80 percent of the vehicles turned in were trucks and sport-utility vehicles, the government said. The top-selling new car is the Ford Focus, followed by the Toyota Corolla, Honda Civic, Toyota Prius and Toyota Camry. The new vehicles on average get 25.4 miles per gallon, compared with an average of 15.8 mpg for the trade-ins.

Well we at least got one of the top five. USA! USA! USA! Congrats Ford, that's why the government didn't have to buy you and build you a secret underground base so you could hide from your creditors. Still though, I'm mildly surprised in the American people. I was just assuming they use their $4500 to buy a F-150 or the Chevy Suburban with the deluxe truck nutz and a horn that honks "Git 'er done!" They actually traded them in for fuel efficient cars. Well done. The environment thanks you and the nation of Japan thanks you.

GM is making a rude gesture at you. Well, most of you. It does want to thank the one guy who used his cash to buy a GM car, but otherwise it has converted it's assembly lines to start in the production of 'defecated in cardboard boxes' for mass delivery to the US public-at-large. You don't deserve GM's love.

Cheap Blogging Crutch 07.21

Celebrating Cronkite while ignoring what he did
Glenn Greenwald on how Walter Cronkite can't even be buried yet because his body is spinning so furiously they can't get it into a casket. Why? Due to all the journalists who seem to praise Cronkite but don't seem to have the slightest recognition of how far their profession has fallen and how little of what they do resembles the kind of work he and men like him did.

Cocksure
Malcolm Gladwell on the banking and financial crisis and how it relates to the psychology of overconfidence, notably how we tend to overrate our accuracy and intelligence as we get older. I know what you're saying "I can't believe the financial industry is rife with self-important, over confident, self absorbed assholes!" Believe it. Read all the way through to the story of the guy who wrecked Bear Stearns getting standing ovations from various parts of the company as he left.

Teen pregnancy and disease rates rose sharply during Bush years, agency finds
What's that you say? The marked increase in abstinence only education during the Bush years led to sharp increases in teen pregnancy and STD's over that period? My God, who could have foreseen that shunning knowledge for religious moralizing and mythmaking would have disastrous consequences? Other than all those previous studies and medical analysis that said so. Next you're going to tell me that the areas that saw the biggest increases were in the south where there was the greatest emphasis on abstinence and the STD eradicating powers of Jesus. Inconceivable.

Eliot Spitzer not my only governor - hooker who worked for Kristin Davis
Just what everyone loves: needlessly cryptic hookers. In between talking about how weird Eliot Spitzer was and how cheap Bernie Madoff was, comes a tale of yet another governor who decided that he'd like to resign in disgrace. But alas, she deigns to name names. Lord Baby Jesus, I don't ask for much, I'm just asking that it be Mark Sanford.

San Diego menaced by jumbo squid
In a stunning gambit to claim the seas before the robots get any ideas, giant fucking squid have been attacking swimmers and getting ink all over San Diego. Did I mention they're giant? Yeah, I did. Did I mention they fly, have fucking parrot beaks, eat meat, and have been attacking swimmers? Shit yourself yet? Don't worry, when their icy tentacles grab you and they sink their beak into you, possibly while you're swimming in the pool or on the toilet, then you'll know who rules the seas.

Who could have foreseen....

...that financial institutions wouldn't learn anything?

Morgan Stanley plans to repackage a downgraded collateralized debt obligation backed by leveraged loans into new securities with AAA ratings in the first transaction of its kind, said two people familiar with the sale.
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Two years after the credit markets began to seize up, costing the world’s biggest financial institutions $1.47 trillion in writedowns and losses, banks are again taking so- called structured finance securities and turning them into new debt investments with top credit ratings.

You mean to tell the bunch of geniuses who barely even understood what they were doing when they bundled piles of shit together into one big pile that collapsed he world economy, aren't smart enough to know not to do it again? I'm just surprised by how quick they're trying to jump back down that hole. I expected we'd at least be out of the current collapse before some genius said "Hear me out. Remember how we destroyed the economy? Let's do the exact same thing but expect different results because we've ostensibly learned something from the whole collapse?" Nope. They aren't even doing something different that just sounds similar. They're doing the exact same thing, possibly with even the exact same bad paper. In case you're wondering if the economy can crash twice within a year, we'll we're about to find out that the answer is yes. I can't believe that they couldn't even find a way to fuck things up in a new way. I hate repeats.

...that the CIA would constantly lie to elected officials?

In a June 26 letter to Mr. Panetta discussing his testimony, Democrats said that the agency had “misled members” of Congress for eight years about the classified matters, which the letter did not disclose. “This is similar to other deceptions of which we are aware from other recent periods,” said the letter, made public late Wednesday by Representative Rush D. Holt, Democrat of New Jersey, one of the signers.

In an interview, Mr. Holt declined to reveal the nature of the C.I.A.’s alleged deceptions,. But he said, “We wouldn’t be doing this over a trivial matter.”

Oh my, not the CIA! Not our most trusted government organization! Not after Republicans spent all that time criticizing Nancy Pelosi and other Democrats when they said they the CIA was hiding information or misleading them on a number of fronts! I guess this is why its such a smart idea for President Obama to threaten to veto a bill that expands the disclosure of covert actions to entire House and Senate Intelligence Committees. I guess he just doesn't want them all to be lied to. You can't have entire committees with hurt feelings, its better they're kept in the dark. I'm just glad that, once again, nothing will be done. I think the order goes something like:

1. CIA admits constant program of misinformation and lies to elected representatives
2. someone uses the phrase "boys will be boys"
3. the CIA's hair gets tousled and they're referred to as a "scamp" or "rascal"
4. everything continues on as if nothing happened.

I fail to see how the CIA never gets the message that they shouldn't lie to Congress. How much more harsh a rebuke than "scamp" can we throw down? Must we traverse down the slippery slope of "ne'er do well" and "nogoodnik"? I'm sure they'll get the message this time.

Who could have foreseen?

Who could have foreseen that by failing to understand the depth and breadth of the financial crisis and that by creating a stimulus bill that loaded up on tax cuts that wouldn't help, hacking out programs that did, and keeping the size of it much too small would have negative effects towards the recovery? I mean other than all those asshole economists with their fancy medallions. Why couldn't anyone have spoken up and told us!!!

Biden, in an interview that aired on ABC's "This Week," said the 9.5 percent unemployment rate is "much too high." The administration had predicted unemployment would stay below 8 percent with its stimulus plan.

"The figures we worked off of in January were the consensus figures and most of the blue chip indexes out there," Biden said. "We misread how bad the economy was, but we are now only about 120 days into the recovery package."

Now ignore the fact that Biden, as is his style, is kind of completely jumping the gun here, as most of the stimulus hasn't even been spent. Still, where we are right now was pretty much where everyone with an economics degree thought we'd be right now, given the kind of stimulus that got passed. There are no surprises here, Joe.

Perhaps if you are unhappy with the 'as predicted' results that's something you should talk over with your Administration and your esteemed colleagues in the Senate. You know, the Administration that moronically started with a compromise bill and then found itself surprised when it had to compromise on that? You know, the Senators who ignored economists so they could pick numbers out of a hat and cut programs based on what they thought sounded expensive to Nebraskans? Sorry you've been surprised by all of this, but to those of us who actually read something during the whole debate, its not that much of a shocker. Good luck trying to get a second stimulus through. I'm sure you'll be surprised at how that turns out too.

Who could have foreseen?

For the last few weeks as Dick Cheney has given his numerous "You WANT me on that wall, you NEED me on that wall...when you put your fingers into a pile of GOO that used to be your best friend's face....forget it America, it's Chinatown" speeches he has maintained that not only was this government sanctioned torture vigorous tub time splashing effective, but it saved lives. What lives did it save? Those menaced by the sinister Iraq/al-Qaeda connection.

Finding a "smoking gun" linking Iraq and al Qaeda became the main purpose of the abusive interrogation program the Bush administration authorized in 2002, a former State Department official told CNN on Thursday.

The allegation was included in an online broadside aimed at former Vice President Dick Cheney by Lawrence Wilkerson, chief of staff for then-Secretary of State Colin Powell. In it, Wilkerson wrote that the interrogation program began in April and May of 2002, and then-Vice President Cheney's office kept close tabs on the questioning.

"Its principal priority for intelligence was not aimed at preempting another terrorist attack on the U.S. but discovering a smoking gun linking Iraq and al Qaeda," Wilkerson wrote in The Washington Note, an online political journal.

My God, you're telling me that they used techniques developed and perfected by the Spanish Inquisition and Khmer Rouge to elicit false confessions....was used to elicit false confessions? Oh me oh my, a plot twist so complex and labyrinthine as to boggle the mind. Who could have foreseen this revelation? Who could have foreseen that Dick Cheney, rascal in chief, was talking utter shit? Someone has told Dick that he wasn't the only person involved with this and that when he starts telling bald faced lies there are other people that exist with different information and little pieces of paper with ink that says the opposite, right?

But there we are. We didn't even get anything good for the complete violation of our laws, international standing, principles, and integrity. Bush and Cheney couldn't even do torture right.

Underpants gnomes

Phase one: Collect a massive Government bailout
Phase two: ???????
Phase three: Never ending profit!!!

Bank of America Corp. posted strong first-quarter earnings Monday as higher revenue from the purchase of Merrill Lynch & Co. helped offset a surge in credit costs. Wall Street, concerned about banks' continuing loan problems, looked past Bank of America's profit and fell sharply.

Bank of America's results surpassed analysts' expectations. But like other banking companies, it is still stuggling with fallout from the recession, taking a hefty $13.4 billion provision for credit losses.

The bank's stock fell $1.32, or 12.5 percent, to $9.28 as the overall stock market slid. Although Wall Street was happy last week with better-than-expected results from JPMorgan Chase & Co., Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Citigroup Inc., banking companies generally benefited during the quarter from unusually strong bond trading, a trend not expected to continue while loan problems persist.

That's right, you can be a Wall Street financial genius as well. As long as you get enough government money to exceed your losses and combine it with methods that are unsustainable in the current economic climate, you too can pretend that you made a profit and are thus a CAPTAIN OF INDUSTRY~! Spend a couple of mil redecorating the office, pretend all that hate towards you and your kind is just envy of your massive capitalist penis, and start up the credit default swaps on mortgages because surely this will never happen again.

At least all this bailing out and ten billion dollar loans/writedowns/shakedowns are providing their intended purpose: helping out the citizens affected by the recession fake balance sheet profits. At least now, what with them being so flush with cash and profitable, the banks have decided to increase lending like they were supposed to. They haven't? Well, who could have foreseen?

This is all working out so well for everyone who isn't a banker or derivatives trader.

Who could have foreseen?: Spying

Officials Say U.S. Wiretaps Exceeded Law

The National Security Agency intercepted private e-mail messages and phone calls of Americans in recent months on a scale that went beyond the broad legal limits established by Congress last year, government officials said in recent interviews.

Several intelligence officials, as well as lawyers briefed about the matter, said the N.S.A. had been engaged in “overcollection” of domestic communications of Americans. They described the practice as significant and systemic, although one official said it was believed to have been unintentional.
...
As part of that investigation, a senior F.B.I. agent recently came forward with what the inspector general’s office described as accusations of “significant misconduct” in the surveillance program, people with knowledge of the investigation said. Those accusations are said to involve whether the N.S.A. made Americans targets in eavesdropping operations based on insufficient evidence tying them to terrorism.

And in one previously undisclosed episode, the N.S.A. tried to wiretap a member of Congress without a warrant, an intelligence official with direct knowledge of the matter said.

Hey Congress and Justice Department, give a shit yet? A member of Congress was getting spied on illegally, surely that's enough to make you stand up and take notice. It wasn't just one of the random faceless millions getting their Constitutional rights violated, it was our precious privileged elected betters suffering the indignity. Surely this will spur some action, enforcement of law, or at least a stern talking to, right? No? Fine, we'll just wait for Spain to get around to fixing it.

It's hard to even find the anger/disgust any more, since this was such an obvious, foreseeable, and predictable outcome. The whole purpose of that new FISA law all our buddies in Congress passed was to completely gut FISA and provide legal cover for everyone doing it, so who's really surprised that a lack of oversight and enforcement resulted in "overcollection." Which is just a fancy word for "extensive massive rights violations of the American public". But hey, I'm sure these abuses were just a few bad apples who didn't....oh, it says abuses were "significant and systemic".

But hey, I'm sure everything is all right now and just pointing out that these things happened and doing nothing to correct the total gutting of FISA that allowed this will mean that this sort of thing will never ever ever happen again. Hey, the Obama JD says everything is alright and they totally fixed things and there's no need to worry. Which is so relaxing, just like it was so relaxing to hear then Senator Obama tell us, back when it was up for vote, that the new FISA law would strengthen civil liberties protection and improve oversight. That worked out so well, I totally believe him this time.

The financial crisis. Who could have foreseen?

Byron Dorgan, that's who. From Rachael Maddow's show the other night comes an interview with Senator Byron Dorgan, replete with a thorough discussion of all his eerily accurate predictions as to the state of the economy and corporate bailouts if we were to deregulate and pass a whole host of other terrible laws. He was summarily ignored.

Here's the article he wrote for the Atlantic Monthly in 1994 that he mentions in the interview. Read it and try not to bang your head off the desk as he describes derivatives trading, banking, and financial markets in such accurately apocalyptic terms that you'd think he drives a time traveling DeLorean. I'm sure that the Senate, where the majority who was wrong is always quick to reward the minority who was right, will let 'ole Byron have a hand in drawing up new regulatory and oversight legislation.

Yeah, right. Well, at least he'll write a prescient article about the upcoming 2020 collapse. At least we'll have that.

Who could have foreseen?: Paulson is a dirty fucking crook edition

Prof. WARREN: Well, they're trying to push money into banks and the question the oversight panel was asking is, `are you getting an equivalent amount back?' And so that's what this was about. Now there could be lots of policy reasons that Treasury might decide that it wanted this money to be in the banks. But our question is the one we put to Secretary Paulson, and that is, `are you putting it in and getting back assets that are worth equivalent value?' He told us yes; our independent investigation said no

CHEN: So are you saying he was lying?

Prof. WARREN: Well, I'm telling you he told us yes and our independent investigation said no.

Dear sweet baby Jesus, who could have foreseen? Hank Paulson was overpaying for worthless assets and then lying to the TARP Congressional Oversight Panel. Are we sure he even bought bank assets? Are we sure Oahu isn't wholly owned by the Hankster now?

But even beyond him paying more for bad assets, why was this even the plan in the first place? "Well banks have lots of worthless assets, so we better buy them at inflated prices that they aren't worth, so then everything is magically fixed and the magic TARP unicorn makes the assets gain some sort of value again." Paulson made a bad plan worse, congrats, I've just summed up the entire Bush regime. So, just in case you were wondering, a lot of that money did get wasted by the Bush Administration. Try and act surprised. At least we own some bank assets that aren't worth what we paid for them. We'll burn them for warmth.

Oh yeah....

...THIS HAPPENED.



59-0 Rod. Scoreboard. Maybe you should have gone on the View one more time, made sure Diane Sawyer got all the interview time she needed on Good Morning America.

All is not lost for Rod, he's still got that book deal and first prison interview to negotiate. Also, before he got impeached he was able to scam one last free plane ride out of the state, pardoned a real estate crook, and used his press conference to creepily invite a kid back to his house to play basketball. Pat Quinn is your new Governor of the Slightly Less Corrupt State of Illinois. Keep your wiretaps clean, Pat. Pre-paid mobiles.