Top Obama lawyer out, to be replaced by Anita Dunn’s husband
Seems as though there has been a lot of news lately on Friday and Saturday. The latest is a report from the AP on White House Attorney Greg Craig. Last week it would have been a story about the White House denying rumors of his resignation. This week it is a story telling us that, actually, those rumors are quite true.
Craig will be resigning in January reportedly as the fall guy for the failure of the Obama administration to fulfill its promise of closing the detainee camp in Guantanamo Bay:
Centered on talk that Obama’s promise to close the Guantánamo Bay military prison by January had gone awry under Craig’s leadership, the questions were settled Friday when the White House announced Craig’s departure.
It was the highest-ranking resignation so far in Obama’s 10-month presidency
The article also briefly mentions Craig’s replacement, general Obama counsel Bob Bauer, who will assume the position in the new year.
The AP gave no further background on Bauer.
Bauer is married to another recent hasty Obama administration resignee: the Chairman Mao-quoting Comm director Anita Dunn. It was leaked that Dunn was stepping down earlier in the week.
The administration has acknowledged that it will miss its January deadline for the close of Club Gitmo.
Leg accomplishes nothing and no one is surprised
The theme of the day around the WBP is irony. Yesterday the NYS legislature convened for a “special session.” I believe it was so-called due to the fact that everyone participating could be mentally classified as special.
Were any cost savings found to help close the state’s nearly $4 trillion budget gap? No, but time was taken out to notice Sandy the Elevator Operator on her last day of service. Congrats Sandy, enjoy your cushy retirement with guaranteed health care and pension that you paid nothing towards.
Both the Assembly and Senate did manage to pass a Mandate Relief Bill, one of the Governor’s programs that does not provide savings as much as the concept of savings being possible one day through the facilitation of municipal consolidation and sharing of services.
The wonderful stroke of irony came today from the state government of California. California is broke, the state is literally unable to pay its bills and fund its budgets and programs. This is the same situation NY will find itself in in three weeks if (and likely when) our state legislators fail to act.
How did California rectify the situation? From the Sacramento Bee:
Effective today, the amount of state income taxes withheld from California workers’ paychecks will increase 10 percent.
Forget how the pundits and various leaning news outlets are attempting to spin last night’s three major bellwether races in New Jersey, Virginia and New York. Today there is only one thing proven: the American voters have lost their minds.
In the two races where overwhelming Democratic voting histories and appearances by President Obama, who was a runaway winner in those two same states just a year earlier, should have guaranteed victories the Dems saw huge losses.
On the flip side a NY district that had selected a Republican in each election since the Civil War the Dem, who was probably the least taled about candidate in the race, notches a win.
Now Dems don’t want the bellwether they hoped for
Less than two weeks ago the left was revelling in the supposed chaos within the GOP in the special election in the 23 Congressional district.
The left’s answer to Glen Beck, 14 year old boy and star of the upcoming Peter Pan remake “Tinkerbell Dusts Wendy,” Rachel Maddow espoused the following on her Oct. 20 broadcast:
It will be news that will cheer the heart of the most pessimistic Democrat.
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For the country as a whole, these races are important to the extent that they are bellwethers, real world indicators of what‘s going on in American politics.
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This year, this New York district which hasn‘t elected a Democrat since the Civil War era looks awfully close to electing a Democrat in 2009, in large part because of a bare-knuckled, hair-pulling, knockdown drag out intra-party fight that has broken out over this race on the political right.
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Now, the local impact of this chaos on the right, the ultimate affect for the New York‘s 23rd district may very well be that the 23rd district of New York elects its first Democrat since around the time of the Civil War.
Then Rachel added in this little nugget:
… we‘ve been talking for the last year about how the Republicans are going to rebuild and whether or not they‘re going to be able to sort out amongst themselves whether or not the way forward is through moderation and trying to appear more centrist, or whether they‘re going to go into a sort of death spiral of ideological purism. And we‘re—it‘s no longer theoretical, we‘re actually seeing it happen right here.
Well Rachel, not only do you do lack an understanding of fashion, your skills for political prognostication also leave much to be desired.
Various polls in NY23 (please also make note to your webmaster that you do not need the superfluous rd after the 23, also deficiencies in Ms. Maddow’s grammar) show Conservative party candidate Doug Hoffman leading by anywhere from 5 to 18 points in the race.
Following Scozzafava’s endorsement of the Dem candidate the Republican position on the national stage after a Hoffman win would be even stronger driven by a “See I told so” mantra permanently shifting the GOP’s focus firmly to the right for upcoming elections.
Obama supporters especially will try to downplay the importance of the election, and others races across the country leaning to the right, as simply reflections of local preferences in those districts rather than a measure of voters satisfaction with the President.
One again, though, I go back to Maddow:
Common political wisdom is that the first round of elections in the new president‘s first year are a referendum on that president.
I note this because the 23 which has become so bright red actually voted overwhelmingly for Obama over McCain in the recent pres election. How quickly the tides have turned.
With a horrible haircut
MSNBC host Rachel Maddow, gay marriage activist despite the fact that every state that has been faced with a vote on the matter has told Rachel and her lesbian friends to take their dildos and Indigo Girl albums and fuck off, has stated that conservatives are “disgusting” for revelling in President Obama’s losing of the Olympics.
Maddow, however, does not seem to hold herself to the same standards. Conservatives cannot make fun of her mancrush (it’s ok Rachel, we know you secretly crave the cock – daddy issues, its all right) but she has every right to take FORMER pres George W. Bush to task for going on the motivational speaker circuit.
Obsess much Rachel?
So, to review: don’t laugh at Obama for losing the Olympics but do laugh at Bush for trying to supplement his income.
I am choosing to laugh at Rachel’s Flowbi haircut.
Rachel, I have news for you. The drop in declared Republicans you keep covering is because the GOP has become too much like you and your compatriots and the same Tea Partyers you often refer to are first reworking our own party and then coming at you amidst a flurry of the 2nd Amendment, traditional marriage since homosexuality is illogical from a biological standpoint and a growing base of influence and action.
You think Maine and Prop 8 in Cali was something to behold? Wait until the next revolution.
Rachel then went on to a story about someone spitting on balls, something Rachel once had to do with her uncle when she was 12, thus the haircut she now sports.
How do the Brits see what’s wrong but we don’t?
From a Feb. 2007 (yes, 2007 before the shit actually hi the fan in the U.S.) British website Market Oracle article the headline reads “US Housing Market Crash to result in second Great Depression:”
This week’s data on the sagging real estate market leaves no doubt that the housing bubble is quickly crashing to earth and that hard times are on the way.
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The US economy is in danger of a recession that will prove unusually long and severe. By any measure it is in far worse shape than in 2001-02 and the unraveling of the housing bubble is clearly at hand. It seems that the continuous buoyancy of the financial markets is again deluding many people about the gravity of the economic situation.
-snip-
The bottom line is that inventories are up, sales are down, profits are eroding, and the building industry is facing a steady downturn well into the foreseeable future. The ripple effects of the housing crash will be felt throughout the overall economy; shrinking GDP, slowing consumer spending and putting more workers in the growing unemployment lines.
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There’s no doubt now, that Fed chairman Alan Greenspan’s plan to pump zillions of dollars into the system via “low interest rates” has created the biggest monster-bubble of all time and set the stage for a deep economic retrenchment. Greenspan’s inflationary policies were designed to expand the “wealth gap” and create greater economic polarization between the classes. By the time the housing bubble deflates, millions of working class Americans will be left to pay off loans that are considerably higher than the current value of their home. This will inevitably create deeper societal divisions and, very likely, a permanent underclass of mortgage-slaves.
-snip-
… figures indicate that foreign investment is drying up and the world is no longer eager to purchase America’s lavish debt. The only thing the Federal Reserve can do is raise interest rates to attract foreign capital or let the dollar fall in value. The problem, of course, is that if the Fed raises rates, the real estate market will collapse even faster which will strangle consumer spending and shrivel GDP. In other words, we are at the brink of two separate but related crises; an economic crisis and a currency crisis. That means that the unsuspecting American people are likely to be ground between the two mill-wheels of hyperinflation and shrinking growth.
Wow, freaky. This was posted a year and a half before the crisis actually hit in the Fall of 2008.
But have we made things any better with the actions taken? Today’s news does not bode well in that regard.
Yesterday, while speaking about a pipedream of retrofitting homes to make them more “energy efficient,” Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan noted that in the last six months 95% of all mortgages have been federally funded via the involvement of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, the same institutions that helped lead us to our current crisis.
Donovan spoke of this in a positive light, then reality set in:
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac shares each fell more than 21 percent yesterday after analysts at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods said their common stock was worthless even if the troubled government-sponsored enterprises end up being recapitalized-snip-
The freefall threatens to hamper and even cripple government efforts to stave off foreclosures, keep interest rates low, restore confidence in the mortgage backed securities markets, and finance new initiatives like the new temporary bond and refinancing program for state and local housing finance agencies announced yesterday.
KBW analysts downgraded shares of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to underperform from market perform and cut their price target on both stocks to zero from $1.
Crap.
And he’ll buy you one too
There is shit coming out of this administration that is so weird I could not make it up. From the WSJ (that’s the Wall Street Journal for our liberal readers):
Uncle Sam is now paying Americans to buy that great necessity of modern life, the golf cart.
The federal credit provides from $4,200 to $5,500 for the purchase of an electric vehicle, and when it is combined with similar incentive plans in many states the tax credits can pay for nearly the entire cost of a golf cart. Even in states that don’t have their own tax rebate plans, the federal credit is generous enough to pay for half or even two-thirds of the average sticker price of a cart, which is typically in the range of $8,000 to $10,000. “The purchase of some models could be absolutely free,” Roger Gaddis of Ada Electric Cars in Oklahoma said earlier this year. “Is that about the coolest thing you’ve ever heard?”
The golf-cart boom has followed an IRS ruling that golf carts qualify for the electric-car credit as long as they are also road worthy.
The office of NYS Comptroller has conducting audits of evry BOCES and school district in the state. The study is sheduled to be completed next year.
The latest district to have its audit released is the West Irondequoit CSD and the news from Comptroller DiNapoli is that corrective actions could be saving property taxpayers in teh area money.
Under contention is the district’s use of reserve funds and the calculation of future liabilities against those funds:
The statutes pursuant to which the reserves are established determine how the reserves may be funded, expended or discontinued. Generally, reserve funds do not have legal restrictions as to the balance carried. However, school districts should maintain reserve balances that are reasonable. To do otherwise, by funding reserves at greater than reasonable levels, essentially results in property tax levies that are higher than necessary.
In West Irondequoit’s case the Comptroller found that “district officials did not properly establish or use reserve funds.”
The audit found that as of July of last year the district had reserve funds totaling over $7 million, $4 million of which had been incorrectly recorded as liabilities. The Comptroller states that these monies should be used for district operations which would in turn reduce the needed tax levies.
Members of the school board and district administrators took issue with the audit and essentially responded that any and all reserve funds were appropriate and accurately recorded:
… we do not believe that the purpose of the Comptroller’s audit should be to substitute its own judgement for that of the Board and its administration … it is our view that our work on these matters … has resulted in controlling costs for the district’s taxpayers
Interestingly enough the infamous FAIR plan rears its head in the districts responses to the Comptroller’s concern over an especially large so-called “Insurance Reserve”:
For many years Monroe County shared sales tax receipts with the school districts … these districts were notified that part of their county share would be reduced in calendar year 2008.
As a result the district placed funds into an “Insurance Reserve” as a hedge against any loss in revenue. The district contends, however, that those funds (no longer needed since the overturn of the FAIR plan in court) cannot simply be transferred back to the general fund.
Getting away from green
Earlier in the summer the WBP posted on grumblings out of China concerning a movement away from the dollar as the standard international currency. This came amidst the massive buying by the Chinese of natural resources and gold reserves.
Now, via the Independent in Great Britain, comes news of secret meetings held between China, Russia, Iran and other OPEC nations to discuss replacing the dollar as the official currency in oil transactions:
Britain’s Independent newspaper reported on its website on Tuesday that Gulf countries have held secret meetings with officials outside the region to discuss dropping the dollar for oil trade.
The countries would instead use a basket of currencies, including the yen, the paper said, citing Gulf Arab and Chinese banking sources in Hong Kong.
The report increased recent negative sentiment toward the dollar, dealers said.
“The timing made it easier to sell the dollar on the news,” Yuzo Sakai, manager at brokerage Tokyo Forex & Ueda Harlow, told Dow Jones Newswires.
“There has been similar talk before but this comes as concern over the dollar’s place in the world is increasing,” Sakai said.
One of the reasons gas is affordable right now is because the weak dollar actually benefits us in this case, the American consumer is purchasing with a weak dollar thus devaluing the transactions. With oil barrels expected to hold at around 70-75 dollars a shift in the currency would buoy profits.
Additionally, Australia today announced that it would raise key interest rates to fight off inflation of its currency, something that worsens everyday in our country due to very low interest rates that are expected to stay at those levels for some time. Two lessons learned in these stories that can be very simply put: cheap money is worthless money.
Australia is the first of the G-20 nations to take such a step and shift away from the general prescription of global stimulus.
