THE BURNED OVER DISTRICT

welcome to the big apple, ya fuckin' fuck

// posted by montag @ 7:58 PM 0 Comments

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

// posted by montag @ 7:08 PM 0 Comments

Coal company managers pressured miners to generate a second set of reports omitting chronic safety problems to mislead inspectors before an underground explosion killed 29 men last year, federal regulators said Tuesday.

Kevin Stricklin, coal administrator for the Mine Safety and Health Administration, said top management at the Upper Big Branch mine was required to countersign safety inspection books that collect miners' daily reports on conditions. The mine was owned by Massey Energy until Alpha Natural Resources bought its rival this month.

"The investigation team concluded that the managers were aware that chronic hazardous conditions were not recorded," he said during a briefing on the federal investigation. Testimony from some of the 266 witnesses MSHA has interviewed also "indicated that management pressured examiners to not record hazards in the books."

Federal investigators first revealed they had found two sets of books — one focused on safety, the other on production — during a private meeting with the victims' families Tuesday night.

// posted by montag @ 1:29 PM 0 Comments

When President Barack Obama cited cost as a reason to bring troops home from Afghanistan, he referred to a $1 trillion price tag for America's wars.

Staggering as it is, that figure grossly underestimates the total cost of wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan to the U.S. Treasury and ignores more imposing costs yet to come, according to a study released on Wednesday.

The final bill will run at least $3.7 trillion and could reach as high as $4.4 trillion, according to the research project "Costs of War" by Brown University's Watson Institute for International Studies. (http://www.costsofwar.org)

In the 10 years since U.S. troops went into Afghanistan to root out the al Qaeda leaders behind the September 11, 2001, attacks, spending on the conflicts totaled $2.3 trillion to $2.7 trillion.

Those numbers will continue to soar when considering often overlooked costs such as long-term obligations to wounded veterans and projected war spending from 2012 through 2020. The estimates do not include at least $1 trillion more in interest payments coming due and many billions more in expenses that cannot be counted, according to the study.

// posted by montag @ 12:02 PM 0 Comments

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

// posted by montag @ 7:06 PM 0 Comments

Sanders believes, if there’s going to be a debt-reduction plan, half the savings should come from taxes and half from spending cuts. And some of those cuts should come from the massive defense budget. If you put this to a poll, I imagine a large chunk of the public would consider this pretty reasonable.

With that in mind, think about how ridiculously skewed the debate has become: Sanders’ blueprint is considered so incredibly radical, it’s not even a remote possibility. The Washington Post mentioned in passing this morning that Sanders’ approach simply has “no chance of passing.”

We have a Democratic Senate and a Republican House, but the notion of an equitable, 50-50 split is thought of as fanciful nonsense backed only by liberal extremists. When Republicans demand a 100-0 split in their favor, meanwhile, and failure to do so will mean they cause a recession on purpose, this is somehow just routine and predictable.

// posted by montag @ 4:58 PM 1 Comments

What Are You Waiting For? from Fix Gun Checks on Vimeo.

// posted by montag @ 11:45 AM 0 Comments

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

// posted by montag @ 7:26 PM 0 Comments

But what I want them to know, just like John Wayne was from Waterloo, Iowa, that's the kind of spirit that I have, too.

// posted by montag @ 4:55 PM 0 Comments

I pay my taxes.

I will not offend your intelligence by pretending to enjoy it; writing that check is about as enjoyable as a chainsaw root canal. But I don’t resent it, either.

I pay my taxes because this is how we the people pay for things we deem to be in our communal interest. This is how our military is sustained. This is how our children are educated. This is how our potholes are filled. This is how our libraries are stocked. This is how our police officers are supplied. This is how we take care of us. So I pay my taxes.

It is because I do, that I was appalled by the story of James Verone. He is a 59-year-old man from Gastonia, N.C. Drove a Coca-Cola delivery truck for 17 years until he lost his job three years ago. He got another job driving a truck, but that job went away, too. So Verone took part-time work at a convenience store, only to find himself physically unable to do it. Verone has a bad back, a problem with his left foot that causes him to limp, arthritis that swells his knuckles and carpal tunnel syndrome. He could not stand behind the register, bend to reach the low shelves, lift things to the high ones

And he had no medical insurance. Then, to make matters worse, he found a lump on his chest. Desperate, Verone considered his options. He filed for disability and early Social Security, but did not qualify. Meanwhile, his savings were running out like sand through an hour glass. He considered a homeless shelter. He considered asking for charity. “The pain was beyond the tolerance that I could accept,” he told a reporter from the Gaston Gazette, upon whose story this account is based. “I kind of hit a brick wall with everything.”

That’s when Verone turned to crime. On the 9th of this month, he walked into a randomly-chosen bank and passed a teller a note demanding one dollar and medical attention. He never showed a weapon, stood there while she called police, waited on a couch in the lobby for them to arrive, surrendered quietly. He went to jail, where he now has shelter, food and, yes, medical care.

I am not here to lionize Verone. His stunt could have gotten someone hurt. Indeed, the teller was taken to the hospital because her blood pressure spiked.

No, I don’t lionize him. But I do empathize.

I pay my taxes. I consider it a patriotic obligation — a sacrifice for the greater we.

But that is not how it is seen by the anti-government forces who have dominated political debate in recent years. To hear them tell it, to pay taxes is to be robbed. And every federal program our taxes support is wasteful and unnecessary, except, of course, those that directly benefit the complainer himself.

During the healthcare debate, we kept hearing that a government-run system amounted to “socialized medicine,” as if Marx would be your triage nurse and Lenin your doctor. As if, by that definition, our government-run libraries, police forces, schools and garbage pickup were not also “socialized.” As if it’s Aetna that really has your interests at heart.

If healthcare were “socialized,” a law-abiding working man would not have felt driven to this extreme. A great nation has a moral obligation to provide a safety net, to care for the most broken and vulnerable of its people.

I pay my taxes. That’s one reason I do.

// posted by montag @ 1:14 PM 0 Comments

The vote was again 5-to-4, with the same five justices in the majority as in the Citizens United decision. The majority’s rationale was that the law violated the First Amendment rights of candidates who raise private money. Such candidates, the majority said, may be reluctant to spend money to speak if they know that it will give rise to counter-speech paid for by the government.

“Laws like Arizona’s matching funds provision that inhibit robust and wide-open political debate without sufficient justification cannot stand,” Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote for the majority. Justice Antonin Scalia, Anthony M. Kennedy, Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr. joined the majority opinion.

// posted by montag @ 12:51 PM 1 Comments

Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney takes his fund-raising machine to London next month, holding a reception aimed at wealthy American expatriates working at banks and hedge funds.

A handful of London fund-raisers were held during the 2008 presidential election cycle, but Romney's event, scheduled for July 6, will be the earliest ever of its kind.

The reception will be held at Dartmouth House, an opulent mansion in the heart of Mayfair that is often used for weddings and conferences.

The suggested contribution to the "Romney for President" campaign is $2,500, according to an invitation seen by Reuters. Under U.S. law, only American citizens and green card holders can contribute.

// posted by montag @ 12:12 PM 0 Comments

Two American soldiers were killed Sunday in Iraq, the military command said, making June the worst month in combat-related fatalities for United States forces in Iraq in more than two years. The casualties also reflected the dangers ahead as the United States prepares to withdraw all its troops from Iraq by the end of the year.

The June total of so-called hostile-related deaths of American soldiers is now 11, the most since May 2009, when 12 were killed, according to icasualties.org, an online database that tracks the deaths of foreign forces in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

In a statement issued Sunday night, the American military said the two soldiers were killed “conducting operations” in the north. It did not elaborate, but that terminology is usually meant to indicate the deaths were caused by enemy attack. In the deadliest single-day death toll since 2009, five soldiers were killed June 5 when a rocket struck Victory Base Complex, the military’s base near the Baghdad airport. A sixth later died of his wounds.

Many of the remaining American military bases in Iraq, particularly in the Shiite-dominated south, have faced an increasing number of rocket and mortar attacks. Officially, the United States is now in an advisory role to the Iraqi military — last year President Obama declared the official end of combat operations — which means United States forces are restricted from acting unilaterally. This has increased frustrations among the American military command, which believes the Iraqi government is reluctant to attack Shiite militias, many backed by Iran and some linked to political parties here, that are carrying out the attacks against Americans.

// posted by montag @ 10:24 PM 0 Comments

The Los Angeles Times reported Sunday that Bachmann, a congresswoman from Minnesota and "tea party" favorite, portrayed herself as a fiscal conservative while also benefiting from government funds and federal farm subsidies. An examination of her record and finances showed that a counseling clinic run by her husband received nearly $30,000 from the state of Minnesota in the last five years, with part of the money coming from the federal government. And a family farm in Wisconsin, where she is listed as a partner, received some $260,000 in federal subsidies.

But asked about the issue on "Fox News Sunday," she insisted that she and her husband had not benefited at the expense of federal and state taxpayers.

"First of all," she said, "the money that went to the clinic was actually training money for employees. The clinic did not get the money. And my husband and I did not get the money either. That's mental health training money that went to employees."

As for the farm, she said it belonged to her father-in-law. "It's not my husband and my farm," Bachmann said. "And my husband and I have never gotten a penny of money from the farm."

As the Los Angeles Times reported on Sunday, however, in financial disclosure forms, Bachmann reported receiving between $32,503 and $105,000 in income from the farm, at minimum, between 2006 and 2009.

// posted by montag @ 4:45 PM 0 Comments

Rep. Michele Bachmann boasted of having a "titanium spine" in an interview broadcast Sunday, the day before she formally enters the race for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012.

// posted by montag @ 1:41 PM 0 Comments

Natural gas companies have been placing enormous bets on the wells they are drilling, saying they will deliver big profits and provide a vast new source of energy for the United States.

But the gas may not be as easy and cheap to extract from shale formations deep underground as the companies are saying, according to hundreds of industry e-mails and internal documents and an analysis of data from thousands of wells.

In the e-mails, energy executives, industry lawyers, state geologists and market analysts voice skepticism about lofty forecasts and question whether companies are intentionally, and even illegally, overstating the productivity of their wells and the size of their reserves. Many of these e-mails also suggest a view that is in stark contrast to more bullish public comments made by the industry, in much the same way that insiders have raised doubts about previous financial bubbles.

“Money is pouring in” from investors even though shale gas is “inherently unprofitable,” an analyst from PNC Wealth Management, an investment company, wrote to a contractor in a February e-mail. “Reminds you of dot-coms.”

// posted by montag @ 12:42 PM 0 Comments

The amount the U.S. military spends annually on air conditioning in Iraq and Afghanistan: $20.2 billion.

That's more than NASA's budget. It's more than BP has paid so far for damage during the Gulf oil spill. It's what the G-8 has pledged to help foster new democracies in Egypt and Tunisia.

"When you consider the cost to deliver the fuel to some of the most isolated places in the world — escorting, command and control, medevac support — when you throw all that infrastructure in, we're talking over $20 billion," Steven Anderson tells weekends on All Things Considered guest host Rachel Martin. Anderson is a retired brigadier general who served as Gen. David Patreaus' chief logistician in Iraq.

// posted by montag @ 12:19 PM 0 Comments

Fifteen months after an election that was supposed to lay the groundwork for Iraq’s future, the government remains virtually paralyzed by a clash between the country’s two most powerful politicians, who refuse to speak to each other.

The paralysis is contributing to a rise in violence, and it is severely complicating negotiations on the most difficult and divisive question hanging over the country: Whether to ask the United States to keep a contingency force here after the scheduled withdrawal of American troops at the end of the year. The longer the deadlock persists, the harder it becomes for the American military to reverse or slow the withdrawal of the roughly 48,000 troops, the pace of which will pick up over the next few months.

// posted by montag @ 7:19 PM 0 Comments

What we’ve seen on the Republican side, overall, is all take and no give. Any serious approach requires compromise and that’s going to be required to achieve the adult moment Speaker Boehner called for. Until the Republicans are more worried about reducing the deficit than they are about Grover Norquist, then we’ve got a problem.

// posted by montag @ 4:43 PM 0 Comments

The farmer picking apples in the outskirts of Kabul must pay the Taliban $33 to ship out each truckload of fruit. The governor sends in armed men to chase workers off job sites if the official bribes aren't paid. Poor neighborhoods never get their U.N.-provided wheat, long since sold on the black market.

These are some of the elements, large and small, that together form the elaborate organized crime environment Afghans contend with daily. And despite the hoped-for success of the U.S. military surge and President Barack Obama's claims of significant progress, Afghanistan's resemblance to a mafia state that cannot serve its citizens may only be getting worse...

Nearly a decade after the U.S.-led military intervention little has been done to challenge the perverse incentives of continued conflict in Afghanistan," the research group says. Rather, violence and the billions of dollars in international aid have brought wealthy officials and insurgents together. And "the economy as a result is increasingly dominated by a criminal oligarchy of politically connected businessmen," the report concludes.

// posted by montag @ 1:11 PM 0 Comments

"We now employ more people between China and India than we do in North America, which is really quite phenomenal when you consider that about 90 percent of our associates 10 years ago were in North America," Chief Executive Officer Peter Huntsman, 48, a younger brother of the candidate, told an industry conference this month.

// posted by montag @ 12:42 PM 0 Comments

Rand Paul is either presenting a misleadingly simplistic argument because he knows it will appeal to dumb conservatives (only a big-city liberal would think you could save money in the future by spending it wisely in the present!) or he's actually as dumb as I have always said he is.

He's obviously some combination of willfully obtuse and dimwitted, but how much of his dimwitted is calculated?

Like, for example, when he said he wanted to shut down the Department of Education because of "the idea of somebody in Washington deciding that Susie has two mommies is an appropriate family situation," he was obviously being an inflammatory bigot asshole, probably because he thinks his constituents are backward hicks who eat that kinda shit up. But does he also not actually know what the Department of Education does? Because they have no say in curricula!

And oh, also, when he said he would filibuster every budget that wasn't balanced, was he just making stupid and unrealistic promises because, again, he has no respect for the intelligence of Kentucky voters, or did he actually not understand that senators can't filibuster budgets?

The fact that he had no idea what happened in Harlan County is proof of his being incurious and ideologically sheltered, not necessarily dumb, but his criticism of the Americans With Disabilities Act showed that he doesn't know what the Americans With Disabilities Act does.

// posted by montag @ 12:30 PM 0 Comments

The state of Indiana is not allowed to cut off most of Planned Parenthood's state and federal public funding solely because the organization also provides abortions, a federal judge said Friday in blocking part of the state's tough new abortion law.

U.S. District Judge Tanya Walton Pratt granted Planned Parenthood of Indiana's request for preliminary injunction on the state's move to defund the organization. Her ruling sides with federal officials who said states cannot disqualify Medicaid providers merely because they also offer abortions or restrict Medicaid recipients' freedom to choose their health care provider.

// posted by montag @ 10:27 PM 0 Comments

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

// posted by montag @ 7:14 PM 0 Comments

Folks, it’s with great pleasure that I report more good news from the House of Representatives. I know, it’s hard to imagine the House getting any better, but a few days ago they did something that can only be described as delicious: They stopped the government from getting all mixed up in food safety.

You see, in December, the president signed into law the first significant food safety reforms in over 70 years. But House Republicans are trying to send those laws back to the kitchen (pun!) by cutting the FDA’s implementation budget. That means that while the laws remain on the books, the FDA won’t have the money to execute them.

// posted by montag @ 5:17 PM 0 Comments

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker's (R) office has quickly sought out a new public venue for his budget signing ceremony this Sunday -- after it was reported that the Green Bay business originally selected was in fact headed up by a convicted tax felon. D'oh!...

Werwie acknowledged that Walker's advance team had erred by not conducting a thorough background check on Gregory A. DeCaster, chief executive officer of Badger Sheet Metal Works in Ashwaubenon.

DeCaster was convicted of six felony counts of income tax evasion in the mid-1990s and was sentenced to three months behind bars. He was also fined $10,000 and given two years of supervised release.

"It was something we wish we would have known on the front end," Werwie said.

// posted by montag @ 5:08 PM 0 Comments

Petraeus said that upong moving over to the CIA, he would retire from an almost four-decade career in the army, hang up his uniform, and address CIA employees with the message: "You all should know that I'm here to recruit you, and I know that you're here to recruit me," Pincus reported. Petraeus said he would be "reaching out, reaching down," and would make a point of eating lunch in the CIA cafeteria several times a week--in the tradition of his predecessor, Leon Panetta, who won unanimous confirmation in the Senate this week as the new secretary of Defense.

If he does win confirmation, Petraeus has made it clear that he'll be operating on far tighter budget constraints than he did as commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan. The entire annual CIA budget now represents less than the cost of one month of the U.S. war in Afghanistan.

// posted by montag @ 1:12 PM 1 Comments

The subdued reception underscored Hispanic discontent with Perry's inclusion of a controversial "sanctuary city" bill in the Texas legislature's current special session, which ends next week. The bill — which threatens local governments with the loss of state aid if they prevent law enforcement officers from asking about immigration status — has been approved by the state Senate and faces a key committee vote in the House on Friday.

Hispanics have also criticized Perry for his embrace of another hot-button measure that requires voters to show photo identification before casting ballots. The bill passed the Republican-led legislature in the regular 140-day session that ended on May 30, and Perry signed it into law.

"Governor Perry is a phenomenal politician and he can campaign like no other, but you've got to get beyond the person," said state Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer, a San Antonio Democrat and the chairman of the state's Mexican-American Legislative Caucus. "Latino voters will look at action but not words. When Latinos scrutinize the actions that have been taken in this state, they'll look for another choice."

// posted by montag @ 10:21 PM 0 Comments

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

// posted by montag @ 7:29 PM 0 Comments

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

// posted by montag @ 7:18 PM 0 Comments

John Yoo, the former Bush administration official whose view of executive power holds that the president has the power to order a child's testicles to be crushed and an entire village slaughtered, thinks President Obama is breaking with tradition by overruling his advisers at the Justice and Defense Department and deciding he didn't need permission from Congress to continue the military's involvement in Libya.

Yoo's argument is that Obama is constitutionally allowed to reach his own interpretations of federal law, but wrote that it was "unprecedented" for a president to disregard the views of senior Justice and Defense Department officials.

In short, Yoo is arguing that Obama would have been fine if he had just put someone in the Office of Legal Council post who would have given him the go-ahead -- perhaps someone with wider views of executive power, like Yoo.

// posted by montag @ 5:14 PM 0 Comments

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has firmly rejected former Rep. Rick Renzi's (R-AZ) claim that Constitutional protections granted to members of Congress prevented him from having to defend himself from charges that he used his position to enrich himself in a land deal.

The court's decision on Thursday strikes a debilitating blow to federal lawmakers' broad claims of immunity from prosecution on anything dealing with legislative activity. If Renzi appeals, it also could set up a Supreme Court showdown over exactly what level of protection from investigation and prosecution the Constitution provides members of Congress.

In recent years, several members of Congress, with the support of House Democratic and Republican leadership and the House general counsel, have tried to wrap themselves in the Speech or Debate clause of the Constitution in order to bar the Justice Department from gaining access to evidence on their Congressional computers or in their offices.

The clause was written to protect the legislative branch from unwarranted intrusion by the executive, but watchdogs and some legal scholars have argued that it has become a way for lawmakers to try to protect themselves from being thoroughly investigated for charges of corruption and unethical behavior.

// posted by montag @ 5:09 PM 0 Comments

"We left the meeting to find that Leader Cantor had walked out of the meetings....because Democrats want to raise taxes," Pelosi said. "Yes, we do want to remove tax subsidies from big oil, we want to remove tax breaks from corporations that send jobs overseas. That list goes on."

Van Hollen told reporters he was "disappointed" by Cantor's exit, saying the talks "had been proceeding well, although there is no doubt that there were some very difficult issues" that needed to be resolved.

"The reality here is until our Republican colleagues are more concerned about our need to reduce the deficit than they are worried about what Grover Norquist will say, were going to have a really difficult time reducing the deficit," he said.

// posted by montag @ 4:56 PM 0 Comments

The U.S. military's top officer told Congress on Thursday that President Barack Obama's decision to withdraw up to 33,000 troops from Afghanistan by next summer is riskier than he originally was prepared to endorse.

Navy Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a House hearing that he supports the president's plans. But Mullen said they are "more aggressive and incur more risk" than he had considered prudent.

"More force for more time is, without doubt, the safer course," Mullen said. "But that does not necessarily make it the best course. Only the president, in the end, can really determine the acceptable level of risk we must take. I believe he has done so."

// posted by montag @ 11:36 AM 1 Comments

But don't laugh. Don't do it. And don't look her in the eyes; don't let her smile at you. Michele Bachmann, when she turns her head toward the cameras and brandishes her pearls and her ageless, unblemished neckline and her perfect suburban orthodontics in an attempt to reassure the unbeliever of her non-threateningness, is one of the scariest sights in the entire American cultural tableau. She's trying to look like June Cleaver, but she actually looks like the T2 skeleton posing for a passport photo. You will want to laugh, but don't, because the secret of Bachmann's success is that every time you laugh at her, she gets stronger.

In modern American politics, being the right kind of ignorant and entertainingly crazy is like having a big right hand in boxing; you've always got a puncher's chance. And Bachmann is exactly the right kind of completely batshit crazy. Not medically crazy, not talking-to-herself-on-the-subway crazy, but grandiose crazy, late-stage Kim Jong-Il crazy — crazy in the sense that she's living completely inside her own mind, frenetically pacing the hallways of a vast sand castle she's built in there, unable to meaningfully communicate with the human beings on the other side of the moat, who are all presumed to be enemies.

// posted by montag @ 11:01 AM 0 Comments

I-Team investigator Michael George reported that the state's Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles sells drivers' license information, including Floridians full name, date of birth, address, and driver’s license number, to ten different companies.

The companies are Acxiom Information Securities Service, Inc., Choice Point, E-Funds, Explore Information Services, LexisNexis, Line Barge, Goggan, Blair, & Simpson, Inc., SC Services, ShadowSoft, TLO LLC, and West Services Inc.

The department said it only sells the information to companies that intend to use it for legal purposes, and not for marketing or advertising.

// posted by montag @ 10:38 AM 0 Comments

Reps. Barney Frank (D-MA) and Ron Paul (R-TX) will introduce legislation on Thursday to the U.S. House of Representatives that ends the federal prohibition on marijuana.

The Oakland Tribute reported that the bill would limit the federal government to enforcing cross-border or inter-state smuggling laws, and allow people to grow, possess, use or sell marijuana in states where it is legal to do so.

Although over a dozen states have legalized the use of marijuana for medical reasons, it is still outlawed under the federal Controlled Substance Act.

The legislation authored by Frank and Paul would allow each state to propose and enforce its own marijuana laws without federal interference.

Democratic Reps. John Conyers (MI), Steve Cohen (TN), Jared Polis (CO) and Barbara Lee (CA) are co-sponsors of the bill.

// posted by montag @ 10:09 AM 0 Comments

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

// posted by montag @ 7:02 PM 0 Comments

The lawsuit, filed in Ingham County Circuit Court, contends that the law approved by Michigan lawmakers this year improperly allows the state to place new costs on municipalities without paying for them and, in essence, bars local residents from picking their own elected representatives.

In March, leaders in Lansing — which has, since last fall’s election, been controlled by Republicans in both chambers of the Legislature and in the governor’s office — approved the measure granting more control to those sent into local governments and school districts by the state to avoid allowing such places to go bankrupt or fail entirely.

Leaders of labor unions, in particular, were outraged by the provision because it allows such state-appointed emergency managers to, in some cases, undo provisions of the contracts that towns and cities had already agreed to. Some appeared for rallies in opposition in Lansing this spring. But others had broader complaints; how, they asked, could a state-assigned official simply step into the role of an elected local leader and do whatever he or she wished?

“What you’re saying is that an emergency manager now controls all, including the right to enact or repeal local ordinances,” said John Philo, the legal director of the Sugar Law Center in Detroit, one of several groups, including the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights, that is representing the plaintiffs in the suit. “What you’re saying is that one individual now without any sort of legislative process gets to enact a law.”

// posted by montag @ 4:20 PM 0 Comments

if Republicans want to take the presidency from Barack Obama in 2012 then their campaign theme should be “he made it worse.”

// posted by montag @ 3:35 PM 0 Comments

Add Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) to the list of Republican lawmakers unsatisfied with the party's reluctance to back Social Security cuts.

The longtime Senator, who will retire at the end of her term in 2012, called on both parties to include the program in debt ceiling talks on Tuesday in a speech at the Heritage Foundation. She's releasing her own legislation to spur talks, a bill that would raise the retirement age gradually to 69 and reduce benefits by trillions over the next several decades by pegging the annual cost-of-living- adjustment (COLA) to one percent below inflation every year.

"We could have waited and let things settle after the debt increase vote," she said. "I'm introducing my legislation because I don't think we can wait and I do think it should be part of the overall debate on raising the debt limit."

Hutchison told the audience that the move was necessary, because without changes to the system, recipients would receive a 23% cut to their core benefits in 2036. But an audience member noted to Hutchison that a 1% cut in benefit increases over a similar period of time could produce comparable decreases. Hutchison responded that a key part of her plan was gradually introducing seniors to lower benefits.

// posted by montag @ 5:17 PM 0 Comments

In a prospectus for clients, Bill Gross, a co-founder of investment management giant PIMCO, says members' of Congress incessant focus on deficit -- and in particular, the manner in which they obsess about deficits -- is foolhardy, and a recipe for disaster. What the country needs, Gross said, is real stimulus now, and a measured return toward fiscal balance in the years ahead.

"Solutions from policymakers on the right or left, however, seem focused almost exclusively on rectifying or reducing our budget deficit as a panacea," Gross writes. "While Democrats favor tax increases and mild adjustments to entitlements, Republicans pound the table for trillions of dollars of spending cuts and an axing of Obamacare. Both, however, somewhat mystifyingly, believe that balancing the budget will magically produce 20 million jobs over the next 10 years.

// posted by montag @ 4:58 PM 0 Comments

Pakistan on Tuesday said it had arrested a high-ranking army officer for alleged connections to militant groups, a rare public acknowledgment of possible ties between this country’s military and the organizations it is battling.

The arrest comes amid rising concern that Pakistan’s military is penetrated by Islamists who are sympathetic to insurgent groups that have declared war on the state. Last month, a naval base in Karachi was stormed by heavily armed fighters in an attack that was widely believed to have required inside help.

The arrested officer was identified Tuesday as Brig. Ali Khan, whose rank is equivalent to that of a one-star general.

// posted by montag @ 12:22 PM 0 Comments

Oysters are just like giant boogers, and I used to pick my nose when I was little. So it’s going to be just like old times.

// posted by montag @ 10:19 PM 0 Comments

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

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

// posted by montag @ 7:18 PM 0 Comments

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

// posted by montag @ 7:11 PM 0 Comments

South Florida Tea Party Chairman Everett Wilkinson thinks the GOP budget -- and in particular its call to phase out Medicare and replace it with a marketplace for private insurance -- is a total disaster. He's saying that Republicans, including members in his sphere of influence like Rep. Allen West (R-FL), should back away from it.

In an email to fellow Tea Partiers last week, obtained by The Palm Beach Post, Wilkinson called the GOP plan a "public policy nightmare" that could trigger "huge Democratic wins in 2012," and prompt Republicans to blame the Tea Party for their losses.

"Republicans will lose if they support the Ryan Medicare plan. Americans do not support the [Paul] Ryan plan," he wrote. "Expect the GOP to then blame the Tea Party for losses."

// posted by montag @ 4:49 PM 0 Comments

A decade ago, the F.D.A. was responsible for policing 6 million separate shipments coming through 300 different ports. This year, that number is expected to grow to 24 million shipments, the report noted. Nearly two-thirds of all fruits and vegetables and three-quarters of all seafood consumed in the United States now come from outside the country.

The situation with drugs and medical devices is even more alarming. More than 80 percent of the active ingredients for drugs sold in the United States are manufactured abroad — mostly in manufacturing plants in China and India that are rarely inspected by the F.D.A. Half of all medical devices sold in the United States are made abroad. Many kinds of antibiotics, steroids, cancer medicines and even aspirin are no longer produced in the United States, or in many cases anywhere in the Western world.

Government investigators estimated in 2008 that the Food and Drug Administration would need 13 years to check every foreign drug manufacturing plant, 27 years to check every foreign medical device plant and 1,900 years to check every foreign food plant at its rate of inspections at the time. And with imports growing faster than the agency’s inspection force, those numbers have only grown.

Many popular over-the-counter medicines and vitamins are made almost entirely in Chinese plants that have never been inspected by the F.D.A. Domestic suppliers often boast that they test their imported ingredients rigorously, but such sampling is akin to testing a bucket of soil from a mountain and then declaring the entire mountain free of pollutants.

// posted by montag @ 1:05 PM 0 Comments

Though the tax break lured them into bringing $312 billion back to the United States, 92 percent of that money was returned to shareholders in the form of dividends and stock buybacks, according to a study by the nonpartisan National Bureau of Economic Research.

This money comes from overseas operations and in some cases accounting maneuvers that shift domestic profits to low-tax countries. The study concluded that the program “did not increase domestic investment, employment or research and development.”

Indeed, 60 percent of the benefits went to just 15 of the largest United States multinational companies — many of which laid off domestic workers, closed plants and shifted even more of their profits and resources abroad in hopes of cashing in on the next repatriation holiday.

// posted by montag @ 12:50 PM 0 Comments

The court unanimously said that what would have been the largest class action in American history could not go forward because the case would have been too big and unfair to Wal-Mart.

In a 5-4 decision, the justices also ruled that there was not enough evidence to prove that the women had something in common in each of the 1.5 million cases...

Experts say that the women can now pursue their cases individually.

// posted by montag @ 11:58 AM 0 Comments

AS a labor lawyer I cringe when Democrats talk of “saving” Social Security. We should not “save” it but raise it. Right now Social Security pays out 39 percent of the average worker’s preretirement earnings. While jaws may drop inside the Beltway, we could raise that to 50 percent. We’d still be near the bottom of the league of the world’s richest countries — but at least it would be a basement with some food and air. We have elderly people living on less than $10,000 a year. Is that what Democrats want to “save”?

“But we can’t afford it!” Oh, come on: We have a federal tax rate equal to nearly 15 percent of our G.D.P. — far below the take in most wealthy countries. Let’s wake up: the biggest crisis we face is that most of us have nothing meaningful saved for retirement. I know. I started my career wanting to be a pension lawyer. In the 1970s, lawyers like me expected there to be big pots of private pensions for hourly workers. By the 1980s, as factories closed, I was filing hopeless lawsuits to claw back bits and pieces of benefits. Now there are even fewer bits and pieces to get.

A recent Harris poll found that 34 percent of Americans have nothing saved for retirement — not even a hundred bucks. In this lost decade, that percentage is sure to go up.

// posted by montag @ 12:01 AM 0 Comments

And many foreclosure lawyers seem unable to meet a requirement, made last October by the New York Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman, to affirm the accuracy of their documentation.

“The affirmation has had a pretty chilling effect,” said Ann Pfau, New York’s chief administrative judge. “The attorneys for the banks tell us they can’t get through to the right people at their clients who can verify the information.”

// posted by montag @ 12:28 PM 0 Comments