Repug finger in the dike

Sphere: Related Content

How Theresa Hatt Caused The Financial Crisis

By Zachary Roth

Last month, Theresa Hatt died at 52, after a brief struggle with cancer.

Hatt, who lived in Portland, Maine, and worked for the city of Scarborough, had had several credit cards in her name. So, shortly after her death, Hatt's son, Paul Kelleher, began the sad task of calling his mother's creditors, to inform them of her passing.

The calls were uneventful, if depressing, until Kelleher got to Bank of America. Here is how he says his conversation with a representative of the company's estates unit went:

Paul Kelleher: Yes, I'm calling to inform you that my mom died on the 24th of January.

Bank of America Estates representative: I'm sorry. Oh, it looks like she never even missed a payment. That's too bad. Well, how are you planning to take care of her balance?

PK: I'm not going to. She has no estate to speak of, but you should feel free to just go through the standard probate procedure. I'm certainly not legally obligated to pay for her.

BOA: You mean you're not going to help her out?

PK: I wouldn't be helping her out -- she's dead. I'd be helping you out.

BOA: Oh, that's really not the way to look at it. I know that if it were my mother, I'd pay it. That's why we're in the banking crisis we're in: banks having to write off defaulted loans.

"I lost it there," Kelleher, a mild-mannered 30-year-old who lives in Brookline, Mass., where he works remotely for a Washington DC-based non-profit, told TPMMuckraker. When pressed, he said, the estates rep backed off that last claim, but only a little, continuing to suggest that cases like his mothers had played a role in the financial crisis.

The rep's apparent intention, as Kelleher described it, was to mislead him into believing that he was obligated -- at first legally, then, failing that, morally -- to cover his mother's debt (which, in any case, was not large: she had had a $1000 limit on her card). Of course, Kelleher was sophisticated enough to know that's not true. But how many other less savvy callers in similar situations, he wondered, might respond to the rep's breezy "how are you planning to take care of her balance?," with a confused "I guess I'll mail in a check"?

And what bothered Kelleher as much as the estate rep's insensitivity, not to mention her apparent effort to deceive, was the impression he got that she wasn't winging it.

"It seemed rote," Kelleher said. "It was too naturally delivered to have been a misstatement."

That impression was strengthened when Kelleher eventually spoke with the rep's supervisor, Eric Davis. Kelleher said that when he recounted his conversation with the rep, Davis apologized -- for what, exactly, it was unclear -- but told him: "That's not how she meant it."

From his conversation with Davis, said Kelleher, "it sounded like [the rep's approach] was encouraged."

How strongly encouraged, we wondered? And how common was this particular rep's approach? So we tracked down a former rep for Bank of America's collections unit. And according to the former rep, Kelleher's interlocutor was doing just what she was told .

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/02/how_theresa_hatt_caused_the_financial_crisis.php

Sphere: Related Content

Boycott Kellogg's For Treatment Of Michael Phelps

To:  Kellogg's Corporation

Whereas...

1) Kellogg's is a major manufacturer of cereal and junk food products including but not limited to Frosted Flakes, Pop Tarts, Cheez-Its, Froot Loops, Keebler's Cookies, Rice Krispies, Eggo Frozen Waffles, Famous Amos Cookies and many other products known to be a part of the diet of many marijuana using Americans

2) The Kellogg's has profited for decades on the food tastes of marijuana using Americans with the munchies. In fact, we believe that most people over the age of twelve would not eat Kellogg's products were they not wicked high.

3)That Kellogg's has decided to end their relationship with Olympic Swimmer Michael Phelps after pictures of him surfaced doing exactly what most Kellogg's customers do right before enjoying a bowl of Rice Krispies mixed with Keebler Cookies with an Eggo on top.

4) That this action by Kellogg's, while legal, is totally bogus.

5) That Kellogg's is a big fat hypocrite, just like our parents when they found our stash under our mattress and took it and then later they sat in the living room and listened the Dark Side Of The Moon over and over and danced and laughed and I swear we smelled something.
John Harvey.

6) That a quick Wikipedia search shows the founder of Kellogg's - john Harvey Kellogg - was a total frickin' weirdo who believe in putting children's genitals in a cage to keep them from playing with themselves and also believed in yogurt enemas.

7) That seriously, just Google John Harvey Kellogg. Dude was freaky.

8) That the thing about yogurt enemas makes us want to hurl when we look at that box of Kellogg's Yogos we have in the pantry.

9) That Michael Phelps should totally drop YOU dudes for your obsession with bran and fiber and masturbation and butts and stuff. You drop HIM? Dude won eight gold medals and probably didn't stick a single one in his butt or tie it in tourniquet around his naughty bits. Dude was just trying to relax. Seriously Kellogg's, WTF?

Given all these facts and the total disregard for your customer base and that thing with the yogurt, we the undersigned plan to BOYCOTT your products.

And we're serious.

Even though the Pop Tarts thing will be HARD.

Sincerely,

The Undersigned

View Current Signatures

http://www.petitiononline.com/Kellogg/petition.html

Sphere: Related Content

Rewarding Failure

Sphere: Related Content

Plague-Infested Mice Missing From New Jersey Research Lab

by David Goodhue

The frozen remains of two mice infected with the bubonic plague are missing from a New Jersey bioterror research facility, and the facility waited seven weeks to report the incident to federal and state authorities.

Officials with the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey in Newark, where the remains went missing, and FBI officials, said the missing mice pose no public health threat.
This is the same facility where three live plague-inflected mice went missing in September 2005. Officials concluded those mice died.

The frozen mice were noticed missing when an animal care supervisor went to prepare them for sterilization and incineration, the New Jersey Star-Ledger reported. University officials still think the remains were incinerated earlier, but lack the records to prove it.

University officials say they contacted the FBI, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and state health officials when they realized the dead mice were unaccounted for.

http://www.prisonplanet.com/plague-infested-mice-missing-from-new-jersey-research-lab.html

Sphere: Related Content

Farewell, Monroe Doctrine

by Philip Brenner and Saul Landau

President Barack Obama could swiftly improve U.S. relations with Latin America by announcing the death of the Monroe Doctrine and then presiding over its funeral. Such a statement would cost him little domestically, and win him praise and appreciation throughout Latin America and much of the world. Most Americans don't know the details of this 185-year-old policy and could care less about it. Latin Americans, in contrast, not only can describe the Monroe Doctrine, but they revile it. In effect, it has become nothing more than hollow rhetoric that offends the very people it purports to defend. In 1823, Secretary of State John Quincy Adams wrote, and President James Monroe proclaimed, a doctrine that asserted U.S. political character is different from Europe's. The United States, President Monroe declared, would consider the extension of Europe's monarchical political influence into the New World "as dangerous to our peace and safety." European powers should leave the Americas for the Americans, he warned, and he strongly implied that there existed a U.S. sphere of influence south of the border. At the time, Europe shrugged. After all, the United States possessed neither a formidable army nor navy. But three serious problems fundamentally vitiated this apparently noble gesture to protect newly independent republics in South America from European re-colonization. First, Washington proclaimed it unilaterally. Latin Americans didn't ask us for protection. U.S. diplomats didn't even consult their counterparts. That was ironic, since the Doctrine's "protection" involved placing the United States between Latin American countries and supposedly malevolent European states. Second, its paternalism — the claim that "our southern brethren" lack the ability to defend themselves — raises hackles in Latin America. Even if the implication had some validity at one time, it no longer corresponds to the region's reality. The third and most problematic issue Obama faces from the outmoded doctrine relates to its legacy. For more than a century, the United States has periodically intervened in the domestic affairs of Latin American countries. Typically the United States invoked the Monroe Doctrine — without threats from Europe — to justify self-serving intrusions that have inflicted heavy damage on Latin American dignity and sovereignty.

http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/5830

Sphere: Related Content

Dr. Doom speaks

Sphere: Related Content

Limbaugh Hears a "Who's Running the GOP?"

 

"He's a good man. He's not hated."
      -- Rush talking about Dubya,    Link 

 

"Why is Rush even talking about Bush? We don't care about Bush anymore 
  unless Bush is being tried for treason and the war crimes that he committed." 
     -- Cats r Flyfishn,    Link 

 

"Bush was the most partisan, most divisive president the nation has ever known, 
  and the ravings of a fat-assed drug addict do little to change that fact." 
     -- marlow      Link 

 

"Bush wasn't partisan and baggyballs Limbaugh wasn't 43's personal nuthugger 
 and all was well in delusional neoclownland." 
     -- Bozo the neoclown,    Link

Sphere: Related Content

Wall Street CEOs, investment bankers charged prostitutes on corporate cards, madam says

by John Byrne

Investment bankers racked up $100,000s in prostitution charges

Visa, Mastercard or American Express? Or maybe a credit card from JP Morgan Chase?

Wall Street CEOs, lawyers, bankers and media executives chalked up thousands of dollars in prostitution charges on their corporate credit cards -- swiping their cards for $2,000 an hour prostitutes, according to a New York madam who pleaded guilty last year.

Kristin Davis, the madam in question, went public to ABC News this week; ABC will be broadcasting her interview Friday at 10 pm. Davis says she has a list of 9,800 clients, many of whom she says New York prosecutors deliberately avoided when taking her case, even though she offered them her annotated client list.

In what's sure to create a media firestorm parallel to that of when a Washington, DC madam announced that she was publishing her client list (which included at least one senator), Davis' comments come at a time where incredible ire is already focused on Wall Street and banking executives. The pressure for her to release the list will certainly be immense.

But the pressure from New York's finest prosecuting team was nearly zero, Davis said.

"They showed no interest," Davis quipped, alleging that they ignored that numerous corporate titans had used her services.

"Some of these guys, I was invoicing on corporate credit cards," she said. "I was writing up monthly bills for computer consulting, construction expenses, all of these things, I was invoicing them monthly so they could get it by their accountants."

District attorney Robert Morgenthau's spokesman was said to have "no comment" on the handling of Davis' case or her allegations.

Davis provided the network with a print-out of her computerized client list, the same one she says that she offered the district attorney.

Among the names the network says it confirmed

* a vice president of NBC Universal (owned by General Electric)
* the part owner of a Major League Baseball team who "loves Kelsey"
* the CEO of one of the country's largest private equity firms who met "Cameron" at the Peninsula Hotel
* a major New York real estate developer who, according to the list, "will come to the door wearing women's panties"
* a partner at the Wall Street law firm Cravath Swaine Moore "looking for a party girl to come fully equipped" and spent a total of $20,000
* an investment banker from Lehman Brothers who saw "Kelsey and Keely together" and later saw "Aria and Skyler at the same time"
* an investment banker at JP Morgan Securities who "loves Brooke" and spent $41,600
* an investment banker at Goldman Sachs who "only wanted all-American girls" and spent $27,000
* a managing director from Merrill Lynch who saw "Lana" using the name "Nataly"
* a managing director from Deutsche Bank "who called about seeing Nataly again"

 

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Wall_Street_CEOs_investment_bankers_charged_0206.html

Sphere: Related Content

Keith Olbermann Special Comment: Cheney Doing the Work of Terrorists

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Sphere: Related Content

Trial date set for Iraqi who threw shoes at Bush

By SINAN SALAHEDDIN

BAGHDAD (AP) — The Iraqi journalist who threw shoes at former President George W. Bush will face trial Feb. 19 on the original charge of assaulting a foreign leader, a judicial official said Sunday.

Muntadhar al-Zeidi, 30, who is considered a hero by many Iraqis for his protest, has been in custody since the Dec. 14 outburst at Bush's joint news conference with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

He had been due to face a trial in December on a charge of assaulting a foreign leader but his defense team won a delay as it sought to reduce the charges to simply insulting Bush.

But Bayrkdar told The Associated Press that the trial will begin on Feb. 19 and the charge of assaulting a foreign leader will stand.

The case became a focus for Iraqis and others in the Muslim world who resent the U.S. invasion and occupation. Thousands demonstrated for al-Zeidi's release and hailed his gesture, which came in the waning days of the Bush administration.

But it also embarrassed al-Maliki, who was standing next to Bush at the time. Neither leader was injured.

The judicial spokesman refused to say what penalties al-Zeidi could face if convicted, saying "it's up to the court." The defense has said the assault charge carries a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jVLyMfz24UHwB7RZrnMiwnTkD6HQD967E4000

Sphere: Related Content

How Bad Is It?

Posted by Karen Tumulty

This bad, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's office shows us:

If you are having trouble reading the fine print: The blue line shows job losses in the 1990 recession; the red line is 2001, and the green line is the path we are on now.

UPDATE: To clarify, these are not projections. This is actual job-loss data.* Pelosi's office explains:

This chart compares the job loss so far in this recession to job losses in the 1990-1991 recession and the 2001 recession -- showing how dramatic and unprecedented the job loss over the last 13 months has been.  Over the last 13 months, our economy has lost a total of 3.6 million jobs – and continuing job losses in the next few months are predicted. 
 
By comparison, we lost a total of 1.6 million jobs in the 1990-1991 recession, before the economy began turning around and jobs began increasing; and we lost a total of 2.7 million jobs in the 2001 recession, before the economy began turning around and jobs began increasing.

*Pelosi's office says they used Bureau of Labor Statistics numbers.

http://swampland.blogs.time.com/2009/02/06/how-bad-is-it/

Sphere: Related Content

Hundreds Attend Global Warming Protest

Sphere: Related Content

Cue the world's smallest violin

by Eric Boehlert

The casual contempt for Obama--an unheard of phenomenon for the press eight years ago when Bush arrived in the Beltway--has already become impossible for many within the media industry to hide. Specifically the WaPo Lisa de Moraes and her unnamed television industry "suits" quoted her news article, "Obama's Preemptive Strike."

The premise is pretty simple: Obama may address the nation three times in primetime during the month of February. The Post's television writer treats this as a really big deal and inserts a how-dare-he attitude, as she wrings her hands wondering how many millions of dollars the networks might "lose" by, you know, handing over the public airwaves for relatively small blocks of time to the POTUS so he can address a national crisis.

"President Obama's desire to talk -- and talk, and talk -- to the American public could cost broadcast networks millions, and millions, and millions of prime-time TV dollars," wrote de Moraes. And yeah, good luck uncovering that kind of contempt when Bush addressed the nation in 2001 on network TV, even before the 9/11 attacks. The idea that it's newsworthy or unusual or a crisis for the TV networks when a president uses the public airwaves to address the nation is just absurd.

http://mediamatters.org/countyfair/200902070002

Sphere: Related Content

War on Words

TERROR WATCH

 

by Michael Isikoff andm Mark Hosenball

Why Obama may be abandoning Bush's favorite phrase.

In another effort to undo the legacy of George W. Bush's presidency, the Obama administration is searching for alternatives to the term "war on terror."

In recent days, Obama's national-security officials have had brainstorming sessions to come up with different ways to describe the U.S. government's efforts to defeat Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups in Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan, according to administration sources who asked not to be identified talking about private discussions.

What's being sought is a more precise phrase that can recast the U.S. government's counterterrorism fight in ideological as well as military terms. Obama publicly signaled the new approach this week. When asked about the "war on terror" phrase by CNN's Anderson Cooper, Obama said, "Well you know, I think it is very important for us to recognize that we have a battle or a war against some terrorist organizations … Words matter in this situation because one of the ways we're going to win this struggle is through the battle of hearts and minds."

Although partly symbolic, the search for new terror terminology reflects an internal government debate that predates the new administration. Critics have long decried the use of the phrase "war on terror" on the grounds that terrorism is a tactic, not an identifiable enemy. Years ago, State and Defense Department officials tried to move away from the phrase "war on terror," proposing instead to call it a "Struggle Against Violent Extremism," or SAVE.

But when word of the suggested change leaked to the media, President Bush displayed his annoyance at the idea during meeting of National Security Council officials. "The president unleashed over this," said one participant in the meeting who asked not to be identified talking about an internal discussion. "He made it perfectly clear that the American public understood what the war on terror was. … He was clearly irritated about this. That put an end to it."

http://www.newsweek.com/id/183251?from=rss

Sphere: Related Content

GOP Think Tank

Sphere: Related Content

A Turning Tide?

By Josh Marshall

This week, out on the broad wastes of cable news drekdom and the uplands of Beltway journalistic drivel, a simple fact has gone almost entirely unreported: virtually everything congressional Republicans are saying about the Stimulus Bill wouldn't cut it in remedial economics. Not that there aren't legitimate policy differences and criticisms to be made of the outline plan before Congress. But to call the Republican complaints 'policy differences' would be to engage in what that old president used to call the soft bigotry of low expectations, as though a political party with as legitimately proud a history as the GOP could not be expected to produce more than economic illiterates.

The ground under our feet might feel firmer if this were just standard order rhetorical abuse. But the truth of it is genuinely frightening, especially since these fellows are planted in Congress rather than on one of the sidewalk corners in Union Square ranting about Socialism and Fluoride or Lyndon LaRouche.

But now there are some flickering signs that the tide may be turning, perhaps in response to just how nonsensical the conversation got earlier this week. For instance, in tomorrow's Post, business columnist Steven Pearlstein devotes an entire column to the fact most of Republicans on Capitol Hill don't even seem to grasp how a Stimulus Bill is supposed to work or even more basic stuff about demand, recession economics or even how jobs come into existence. As in, it's not a Stimulus Bill, it's a spending bill.

Tactfully, Pearlstein doesn't say explicitly for most of the article that it's Republicans he's talking about. You have to infer that from the names of the members he dings. But toward the end of the piece he can't seem to help cutting to the chase ...

what's striking is that supposedly intelligent people are horrified at the thought that, during a deep recession, government might try to help the economy by buying up-to-date equipment for the people who protect us from epidemics and infectious diseases, by hiring people to repair environmental damage on federal lands and by contracting with private companies to make federal buildings more energy-efficient.

What really irks so many Republicans, of course, is that all the stimulus money isn't being used to cut individual and business taxes, their cure-all for economic ailments, even though all the credible evidence is that tax cuts are only about half as stimulative as direct government spending.

It really does approach flat earth territory.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2009/02/a_turning_tide.php

Sphere: Related Content

Brains 'are hardwired to believe in God and imaginary friends'

By Fiona Macrae

Religion is part of human nature and our brains are hard wired to believe in God, scientists believe.

The evidence includes studies of babies and children which have shown the brain is programmed to think of the mind as being separate from the body.

This distinction allows us to believe in the supernatural, to conjure up imaginary friends  - and to conceive of gods, this week's New Scientist reports.

Other studies suggest our minds come with an overdeveloped sense of cause and effect, which primes us to see purpose and design everywhere, even when there is none.

Children as young as seven or eight believe that rocks, rivers and birds have been created for a specific purpose.

Taken together, the two traits mean were are perfectly programmed to believe in god.

Professor Paul Bloom, a psychologist at Yale University in the US, said: 'There's now a lot of evidence that some of the foundations for our religious beliefs are hard-wired.

'All humans possess the brain circuitry and it never goes away.'

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1136482/Brains-hardwired-believe-God-imaginary-friends.html

Sphere: Related Content

Paul Krassner's Contributions to the Counterculture

Sphere: Related Content

FDA approves for sale drug made in DNA-modified goats' milk

Federal officials on Friday approved for the first time the sale of a drug made in animals genetically modified to secrete the compound in their milk. The drug comes from goats whose DNA was altered to produce a drug needed by patients with a rare blood disorder.

By Shankar Vedantam

WASHINGTON — Federal officials Friday approved for the first time the sale of a drug made in animals genetically modified to secrete the compound in their milk.

The drug comes from goats whose DNA was altered to produce a drug for patients with a rare blood disorder.

Using animals as factories to produce medications needed by humans has been a long-standing goal. Federal officials emphasized that the technique has vast potential for patients and can be carried out without harm to the animals.

The drug approved Friday by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), ATryn, is used to untangle blood clots in patients who lack sufficient quantities of antithrombin, a protein that acts as a natural blood thinner. Patients with hereditary antithrombin deficiency are at high risk during surgeries and childbirth, and the drug would be given in hospital settings. About one in 5,000 Americans has the disorder.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/health/2008717509_gene07.html

Sphere: Related Content