swimming freestyle

Wolves watching hen houses; the Senate and rescued banks

The Washington Independent recently ran on a story on U.S. senators who hold financial interests in banks rescued with TARP funds.  While the Independent was clear that no aspersions were being cast, it does raise some interesting questions about conflicts of interest in the federal legislative branch.

Of the 74 upper-chamber lawmakers who supported the $700 billion financial rescue in October, at least 15 own direct shares in institutions receiving federal funds under the Troubled Assets Relief Program, according to financial disclosure forms filed by members of Congress last month. Combined, those 15 members hold between $1.2 million and $3.0 million worth of stock in TARP beneficiaries — firms that have received no less than $330 billion in TARP funds and loan guarantees since the program began.

Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), for example, along with his wife, reported holdings between $66,000 and $166,000 in Bank of America, which has received $52.5 billion in TARP-backed funds and backstop guarantees. He also claimed between $151,000 and $365,000 in shares of Citigroup ($50 billion from TARP), and between $251,000 and $516,000 in shares of American Express ($3.4 billion from TARP).

He’s hardly alone. Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) reported holdings between $100,000 and $250,000 in Key Bank ($2.5 billion from TARP). Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) claimed between $15,000 and $50,000 of stock in Capital One ($3.6 billion from TARP), and another $15,000 to $50,000 in JPMorgan Chase ($25 billion from TARP). The list goes on.

In all, at least 15 senators supporting TARP have benefited financially from the program — a number that’s likely to rise. Thirteen upper-chamber lawmakers have yet to submit their financial disclosures this year.

The article notes that, whereas judges are obligated to recuse themselves from cases where a financial conflict may arise, Congress has no such requirements.  

When conflicts of interest charges do arise, a committee of fellow senators evaluate the circumstances and make a ruling whether any ethics violation occurred. 

The roots of schizophrenia

Schizophrenia is an insidious disease.  Usually striking in late adolescence, schizophrenics suffer with hallucinations and delusions, hear voices and experience severe paranoia.  Drug therapy is the rule, but the schizophrenics life is often marked by poverty and homelessness.

Scientists have known that schizophrenia has a significant genetic determinant, and a recent set of research projects have more successfully identified the roots of schizophrenia.  The researchers now believe that thousands of tiny genetic mutations significantly raise the odds for the onset of schizophrenia.

Although the schizophrenia studies have so far only identified a handful of the many thousands of genetic variations implicated in the mental illness, scientists believe it represents a breakthrough that will accelerate the understanding of the condition and the development of new drugs and treatments. "This is a pretty major breakthrough for us because before today you could count on the thumb of one hand the number of common [genetic] variants that have been reliably identified for schizophrenia," said Michael O'Donovan, professor of psychiatric genetics at the Medical Research Council's neurogenetics centre in Cardiff.

"Discoveries such as these are crucial for teasing out the biology of the disease and making it possible for us to begin to develop drugs targeting the underlying causes and not just the symptoms of the disease," said Kari Stefansson, the head of deCode Genetics...(Link)

I Hear America Singing

I Hear America Singing

I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear,
Those of mechanics, each one singing his as it should be blithe and strong,
The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or beam,
The mason singing his as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work,
The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat, the deckhand
     singing on the steamboat deck,
The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench, the hatter singing as he stands,
The wood-cutter's song, the ploughboy's on his way in the morning, or
     at noon intermission or at sundown,
The delicious singing of the mother, or of the young wife at work, or of
     the girl sewing or washing,
Each singing what belongs to him or her and to none else,
The day what belongs to the day—at night the party of young fellows,
     robust, friendly,
Singing with open mouths their strong melodious songs.

Walt Whitman

America rules, England sucks

Happy 4th of July.

Why Palin bailed

This is pretty fast.  The Daily Beasts already has a ten possible reasons for Sarah Palin's "I'm bailing on this lame Alaska gig" strategy.  A couple of my favorites:

THEORY 2: SHE'S RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT

As Daily Beast notes, Palin's "SarahPAC" was soliciting funds just last week.  I got an email from the Sarah4pres2012 group already this afternoon, boasting about today's publicity coup by Sarah Palin.  (What?  You're surprised I'm on Sarah Palin's mailing list?)

THEORY 3: SHE’S NOT RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT

Andrea MItchell of NBC News reported today that Palin confidantes said she's sick of politics and wants out.  This certainly seems plausible since, given her bonehead move today, anyone with half a brain is not going to have much confidence in the governors judgment.

THEORY 9: SHE’S ANGLING FOR A TV SHOW

FOX loves her.  And that's where the real money is.

THEORY 6: THE ETHICS POLICE WERE ABOUT TO NAB HER

Despite the Palinphiles attempts to portray the price tag for Palin ethics investigations as "millions of dollars", the real cost is less than $300K.  But some in Alaska have guessed today that there's an "iceberg scandal" about ready to hit that will do some serious damage to the governor.

THEORY 7: SHE’S UNSTABLE

No shit.

Dear Sarah, WTF?

Sarah Palin announced today she would resign her responsibilities as Alaska governor at the end of July.  She will turn over the responsibility to govern the state to Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell.

The speculation is Ms. Palin abandoned her responsibilities in order to concentrate on a 2012 Republican presidential nomination run. Here's the governors announcement.

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

The news comes the same week as the release of a devastating Vanity Fair profile of the governor and the leaking of McCain campaign emails.

Honestly, this is the lamest excuse for abandoning elected office I've ever heard.  "I'm a lame duck so I'm just gonna bag it now?"

I'm sure all the Palinphiles will put on their game faces and feebly attempt to argue Ms. Palin is doing the right thing for Alaskans.  The rest of us are just gonna see a flaming narcissist who's bailing from her job midstream in order to pursue yet another office she's unqualified to hold.

Roller babies

A new commercial for Evian.

The HELP bill and the CBO

In June, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) did a budget on a preliminary health plan being debated in the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee (HELP).  The price tag for that still incomplete plan came in at a cost of $1T over the next ten years and left many Americans still uninsured. 

The Obama Administration's demand that the emerging health care plan include a plan to pay for it notwithstanding, Congressional Republicans and conservative Democrats were quick to freak out.  WAY TOO EXPENSIVE, they claimed.  More than willing to vote hundreds of billions of dollars to fund U.S. military expenditures for the good people of Iraq and Afghanistan, Congress is decidedly stingy when it comes to basic health care rights for their fellow Americans. 

But, lo and behold.  The Senate HELP Committee finished their proposal for health care and the CBO has projected the budget for the complete plan. 

The plan carries a 10-year price tag of slightly over $600 billion, and would lead toward an estimated 97 percent of all Americans having coverage, according to the Congressional Budget Office.  (Link)

There's a hitch.  The way to save $400B and insure near 100% coverage?  Include a public, government managed plan to compete with private insurance carriers and a $750/year/employee fee for employers not currently offering health insurance.

This will be a potent argument to the claim that a public plan is inherently expensive.  Let's face it - the way to low cost, universal health care will involve a public plan.  Health care reform without that public plan will be expensive and continue to exclude millions of Americans from health care.

A picture for the day

Ribnovo, Bulgaria: An ethnic Pomak girl writes during a class on Islam at a school  (Photograph: Vassil Donev/EPA)

We're fat

Americans are getting fatter and fatter.

The Trust for America's Health (TFAH) and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation found adult obesity rates rose in 23 of the 50 states, but fell in none.

In addition, the percentage of obese and overweight children is at or above 30% in 30 states.

The report warns widespread obesity is fueling rates of chronic disease, and is responsible for a large, and growing chunk of domestic health care costs. (Link)

Interestingly, this news comes on the heels of the publication of a new study suggesting that obesity stems from a variation in a gene controlling the central nervous system.  And, not unexpectedly, the gene is related to addiction tendencies.

After analyzing more than two million regions of the human genome, the researchers found that the NRXN3 gene variant ─ previously associated with alcohol dependence, cocaine addiction, and illegal substance abuse ─ also predicts the tendency to become obese. Altogether, researchers found the gene variant in 20 percent of the people studied. (Link)

Identifying the gene variant early could allow for early treatment and prevention methods.  But in the meantime, the Onion has a solution:

Michelangelo's self portrait

The restoration of Michelangelo's final work, The Crucifixion of Saint Peter in the Vatican's Pauline Chapel, began in 2004.  As work progressed, scholars began wondering who was portrayed in the upper left hand corner of the fresco.  After analyzing portraits of the artist, these scholars now believe it represents Michelangelo's only self portrait.

"What has emerged is a later Michelangelo work seen in a new light, a work which marked the end of his painting, as he dedicated himself to sculpture and architecture," said Mr De Luca. He said that after months' of research and discussion with some of the world's leading art experts he was convinced the artist had painted his life-like image on the fresco, which he created between 1545 and 1550. (Link)

Here's an enlarged version of the fresco showing the self portrait:

I got a paper cut and Obama is to blame

Some things are almost too stupid to be true.

Here's Rush Limbaugh the other day explaining South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford's disappearance and affair:

...So he ups and leaves for five days, doesn't leave anybody in charge of the state, in case there's an emergency.

This is almost like: I don't give a damn! Country's going to hell in a handbasket. I just want out of here!

He had just tried to fight the stimulus money coming to South Carolina. He didn't want any part of it. He lost the battle and said "What the hell? The Federal government is taking over! I want to enjoy life!"

Not quite stupid enough?  OK, then...how's this?

Michael Jackson's biggest successes, and as it turns out his final successes, real successes took place in the eighties. That was Billie Jean, Thriller and all this. I mean he was as weird as he could be but he was profoundly, because of his weirdness, an individual. He wasn't a group member. He reached a level of success that may never be equaled. He flourished under Reagan; he languished under Clinton-Bush; and died under Obama. Let's hope the parallel does not continue.

Got that?  Mark Sanford's and Michael Jackson's stories have nothing to do with bad judgment and bad choices.  It's actually the federal government and Barack Obama that forced the governor to disappear for five days, leaving his state in the lurch while he was off in Argentina with his mistress.  And it's the suffocating power of the state that caused Michael Jackson's declining popularity and death, not the multiple botched plastic surgeries, persistent rumors of improper behavior, freakish lifestyle, and reported drug abuse that doomed Jackson.

For a group that claims personal responsibility as a mantra, these conservatives sure are quick to blame someone, anyone, else for all their troubles.

The Saddam interrogations

Ex-Iraq President Saddam Hussein, before his execution in 2006, was interrogated in both formal and informal settings in 2004 by the FBI.  The transcripts of (most of) those interviews were released yesterday.  While many of the details from the interrogations had been previously disclosed during interviews with the lead FBI interrogator, George L. Piro, the transcripts nonetheless serve as a complete record of the shortsighted, reckless...criminal, actually... blunder that was the U.S. decision to invade Iraq.

The major points:

  -  Saddam Hussein allowed the world to believe Iraq had weapons of mass destruction as a deterrent to neighboring Iran.

  -  The Iraq president labeled al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden a "zealot" and claimed Iraq had no dealings with the terrorist group.

  -  The threat from Iran was considered so great, Saddam would have considered a security agreement with the United States to protect Iraq.

Hussein's fear of Iran, which he said he considered a greater threat than the United States, featured prominently in the discussion about weapons of mass destruction. Iran and Iraq had fought a grinding eight-year war in the 1980s, and Hussein said he was convinced that Iran was trying to annex southern Iraq -- which is largely Shiite. "Hussein viewed the other countries in the Middle East as weak and could not defend themselves or Iraq from an attack from Iran," Piro recounted in his summary of a June 11, 2004, conversation.

"The threat from Iran was the major factor as to why he did not allow the return of UN inspectors," Piro wrote. "Hussein stated he was more concerned about Iran discovering Iraq's weaknesses and vulnerabilities than the repercussions of the United States for his refusal to allow UN inspectors back into Iraq."  (Link)

There may be some that read the accounts of the transcripts and lament that "if only we knew then what we know now".  But based on nearly everything I've read on the subject, the U.S. decision to wage the Iraq war was made well before there was any opportunity to collect facts and intelligence.  Those would have barely muddied the waters.

Karl Malden

Karl Malden, the Academy Award-winning character actor whose half-century in show business carried him from the theater to films and then to television, where he policed the streets of San Francisco and became indelibly identified with a commercial for traveler’s checks, died Wednesday at his home in Los Angeles. He was 97.

In many ways, Mr. Malden was the ideal Everyman. He realized early on that he lacked the physical attributes of a leading man; he often joked about his blunt features, particularly his crooked, bulbous nose, which he had broken several times while playing basketball in school. But he was determined “to be No. 1 in the No. 2 parts I was destined to get,” he once said. (Link)

Mr. Malden won an Academy Award for his performance in "A Streetcar Named Desire" and most know him for his starring role on the TV show "Streets of San Francisco".  But it was as the priest in "On The Waterfront" that I thought Karl Malden was the greatest.

The bankruptcy of the right

This video has shown up today in several blogs.  It's ex-CIA operative Michael Scheuer on Glenn Beck's show arguing that the federal government has failed us and "the only chance we have as a country right now is for Osama bin Laden to deploy and detonate a major weapon in the United States".

I know it's crazy to expect rational debate on cable news shows, but what does it say about an ideology that considers its argument so weak and its proponents so incapable of effectively defending it, that the only way folks will be convinced of its merits is the sacrifice of countless numbers of Americans?

These two knuckleheads are a part of the "we have to kill it to save it" crowd.  They want the federal government to go belly up so their loopy ideology can somehow be justified.  They are desperately looking for the opportunity for their "I told you so" moment and if it means the suffering of millions of Americans, either economically or physically, well...so be it.

'This is something we would advise men never to attempt'

Perhaps taking the whole "do it yourself" craze a little far, a British man was rushed to the hospital after attempting to circumcise himself with a pair of nail clippers.

The unnamed young man was taken to the Lister Hospital in Stevenage, Hertfordshire, where he had the wound cleaned and disinfected.

He was kept in the hospital for observation.

"This is something we would advise men never to attempt," a medic told the Telegraph. "The results can be quite horrific and long-lasting and have quite an affect on a man's sexual performance. Using a pair of nail clippers must have caused excruciating pain, even if he had had a few drinks beforehand."  (Link)

 Uh, that goes without saying.

About those 60...

While yesterday's decision by the Minnesota Supreme Court paved the way for seating Al Franken as the 60th Democratic voting senator, an article in McClatchy suggests we sholdn't get too excited about the prospects of a united and filibuster proof Democratic Senate.

As the article notes, a couple Democratic senators (Edward Kennedy and Robert Byrd) are suffering with medical problems that make their votes unreliable.  A few more (Ben Nelson, Arlen Specter and Joe Lieberman) are tenuous at best; these senators should be considered Democratic senators on paper only and their support for a Democratic agenda is questionable.  A few more (Evan Bayh, Mary Landrieu and Kent Conrad) are considered more moderate, and have publicly balked at some recent Democratic objectives.

...it's unlikely that the 58-year-old Harvard-educated comedian and now senator-elect will make a dramatic difference this year as his party and the White House fight to overhaul health care, limit carbon emissions and pass other major legislation.

"It's a numerical achievement, but not necessarily a political one," said Ross Baker, a political science professor at Rutgers University.

It's a whole lot better than being in the Republican's situation, but the 60 "Democrats" is hardly a slam dunk for enacting a progressive agenda.

Chuck Todd should get his own TV show

Chuck Todd is the political director and Chief White House correspondent for NBC News.  Todd is noteworthy for his straight ahead, no bullshit political reporting and this clip is a great example. 

On today's Morning Joe show, Todd was asked about yesterday's Supreme Court decision on the Ricci case and what effect, if any, the SCOTUS decision will have on Sonia Sotomayor's Supreme Court justice nomination.

Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough seemed genuinely stunned that Chuck Todd would dare suggest that the conservative majority of the Supreme Court, as Todd notes, "legislated from the bench".

The notion that liberal judges are activists and conservative judges are constructionists is a paradigm long due to fall. 

Now there's 60

Norm Coleman finally conceded today he'd lost his bid to be reelected the Republican senator from Minnesota.  Following multiple challenges and, finally, a decision by the states Supreme Court,  Al Franken was ruled the winner of the November 2008 contest.  It's likely Mr. Franken will be sworn into the Senate as soon as they return next week from the 4th of July break.

Mr. Franken now makes 60 Democratic (or Democratic voting) senators.  That's a filibuster proof majority and presents a great opportunity for real solid progressive legislation to be channeled through Congress.

There are two kinds of people in this world (Don't you hate it when folks say "there are two kinds of people in this world"?).  There are those that relish the opportunity to do something big; to take the big bold steps and make big significant accomplishments. 

Then there are those that are cautious, that don't want to be too disruptive to the status quo, and act meekly with the power they've been provided.

Any bets on which way this 60 member Democratic Senate will go?

Obama and gay issues

For my money, President Obama has fallen short on a couple of key issues.  I really wish we could hear some cogent strategy for Afghanistan before large commitments in resources and troops.  The presidents detention and interrogation policies are way too akin to the last administrations practices.  And, finally, despite some encouraging words that he supports gay rights, the president hasn't made any significant steps in that direction. 

The administrations lack of action to repeal "don't ask, don't tell", the confusing positions on the Defense of Marriage Act, and a obvious lack of Administration comment on several states recent moves to legalize same sex unions all have caused concern that the president is more than happy to talk the talk, but reluctant to walk the walk.

Last week, the president hosted a large reception of gays and promised more action from his administration.

...I expect and hope to be judged not by words, not by promises I've made, but by the promises that my administration keeps. We've been in office six months now. I suspect that by the time this administration is over, I think you guys will have pretty good feelings about the Obama administration."

According to press reports, the meeting went well for the president as gay and lesbian leaders appeared willing to cut the president some slack and buy his argument that six months in office is insufficient time to make sweeping changes.

Good enough, but the president is going to have to start walking the walk at some point pretty soon.