Eric Cantor's Policy Group 'Faded Away' Simply
Because the GOP has No Ideas (Other Than 'No,' Of Course) -- Barbara's Daily Buzz

post from BuzzFlash.org - Progressive News and Commentary with an Attitude | Fight Ignorance: Read BuzzFlash on 07 May 2010 10:42:02 AM. © BuzzFlash.org - Progressive News and Commentary with an Attitude | Fight Ignorance: Read BuzzFlash

BARBARA'S DAILY BUZZFLASH MINUTE

Repuglicans who profess to be part of the human race can't get any more disgusting than this:

Republican candidates in Tennessee?s 8th Congressional District made candid comments about gays at a ?Tea Party forum...

"...they were taken care of in ways I can?t describe to you.?

Bully bluster is really, really ugly!

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http://blog.buzzflash.com/dailybuzz/928

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Cameron Begins to Negotiate.

post from The Osterley Times on 07 May 2010 10:36:00 AM. © The Osterley Times

Cameron has made his speech, claiming that his government won more seats than the government of Margaret Thatcher. It's simply bollocks.

Cameron won with 36.2% of the electorate backing him, which is woefully short of the 42% who regularly voted for Thatcher.

He's made an offer to the Liberal Democrats but he set out his demands:

The Tory leader says it is reasonable to expect the bulk of his policies should be implemented in a deal with the Lib Dems. But there are opportunities for negotiations, he adds. He cites education policy and creating a low-carbon economy.

He then offered the nearest thing to a sweetener:

David Cameron says the Tories and Lib Dems can discuss electoral reform, with an all-party committee of inquiry set up to discuss the issue.

Will that be enough to get Clegg on board? Time will tell, but we all know that Brown is waiting in the winds.

Mr Brown said he would be "willing to see any of the party leaders" adding: "I understand and completely respect the position of Mr Clegg in stating that he wishes first to make contact with the leader of the Conservative Party."

But he added "should the discussions between Mr Cameron and Mr Clegg come to nothing... I would be prepared to discuss with Mr Clegg the areas where there may be some measure of agreement between our two parties".

Clegg remains in the role of king maker, with both the others fighting to get him to choose them.

It's ironic that this provides an almost perfect example of what is wrong with proportional representation, as we are watching the two parties who between them won 65.1% of the votes cast, having to barter with the guy who only got 23% of the vote.

Tags: Cameron, Clegg, Brown, Tories, Labour, Liberal Democrats

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http://the-osterley-times.blogspot.com/2010/05/cameron-begins-to-negotiate.html

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900-Point Dow Drop as Much About Faulty Oversight
as Human Error

post from Firedoglake on 07 May 2010 10:30:39 AM. © Firedoglake

I don't want to say this was completely a technical glitch - even with that the market went down 350 points, mostly on European debt fears. But in a sense, what we saw yesterday does argue for stronger regulation of the financial sector. Too much trading[...]

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http://news.firedoglake.com/2010/05/07/900-point-dow-drop-as-much-about-faulty-ov
ersight-as-human-error/

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Speaking of Neanderthals ....

post from They gave us a republic... - Front Page on 07 May 2010 10:30:00 AM. © They gave us a republic... - Front Page

Forget John Yoo's twisted legal rationales; ignore 24's pornographic violence. The original source of the mind-set that torture is acceptable may be the apparent disappearance of ethical training in the medical field.

Remember the doctors who were called in to "oversee" torture of prisoners at Guantanamo? The psychologists who strayed so far from the tenets of their profession that they actually gave advice as to the most effective methods of "enhanced interrogation?"

The ethical rot appears to have spread to the doctors who treat children, because their professional organization is now recommending and describing how to perform female genital mutiliation.

PZ Myers:

The American Academy of Pediatrics has come up with a compromise on female genital mutilation.
International human rights organization Equality Now is stunned by a new policy statement issued by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), which essentially promotes female genital mutilation (FGM) and advocates for "federal and state laws [to] enable pediatricians to reach out to families by offering a 'ritual nick'," such as pricking or minor incisions of girls' clitorises. The Policy Statement "Ritual Genital Cutting of Female Minors", issued by the AAP on April 26, 2010, is a significant set-back to the Academy's own prior statements on the issue of FGM and is antithetical to decades of noteworthy advancement across Africa and around the world in combating this human rights violation against women and girls. It is ironic that the AAP issued its statement the very same day that Congressman Joseph Crowley (D-NY) and Congresswoman Mary Bono Mack (R-CA) announced the introduction of new bipartisan legislation, The Girls Protection Act (H.R. 5137), to close the loophole in the federal law prohibiting FGM by making it illegal to transport a minor girl living in the U.S. out of the country for the purpose of FGM.
Nice bit of accommodationism there. "We'll just mutilate baby girls a little bit, to make the misogynist patriarchal assholes happy." Well, we have no obligation to make misogynist patriarchal assholes happy at all, especially not when it involves waving scalpels about in the genitals of children.

Read the whole thing.

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http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheyGaveUsARepublic-FrontPage/~3/YywK5aKtYHA/speak
ing-of-neanderthals

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First, Do No Harm AAP Endorses 'Female Genital
Cutting'

post from Everyday Citizen on 07 May 2010 10:19:57 AM. © Everyday Citizen

Disturbing reports surfaced today after the American Academy of Pediatrics endorsed "female genital[...]

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http://www.everydaycitizen.com/2010/05/american_academy_of_pediatrics.html

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American Academy of Pediatrics Endorses "female
genital cutting" : First, do no Harm

post from Everyday Citizen on 07 May 2010 10:19:57 AM. © Everyday Citizen

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Fed Court Filing: How An Armed, Drugged-Up CIA
Agent Fell Apart

post from TPMMuckraker on 07 May 2010 10:16:00 AM. © TPMMuckraker

CIA Agent Andrew Warren was already on probation on charges that he had sex with a drugged woman in Algeria, where he was serving as CIA station chief, before breaking down in Virginia last month in what sounds like an epic unraveling.

According to a new federal court filing, Warren allegedly exposed himself to a woman, lied about his name and social security number when confronted by police about it, and said he had a "Glock service weapon" (that he refused to show police). And then, during a conversation with police at his home on April 3:

Warren then proceeded to show the officer a disguise kit and said that he could use it to hide from anyone because he had been trained by the CIA. Warren told the officer that he had been trained in the martial arts, all types of weapons and spoke eight Arabic languages. During this communication, the officer reported that Warren took down the officers' names and unit numbers and stated words to the effect of "it will be different the next time I meet with you".

Warren allegedly maintained that he wasn't threatening the officer -- and then left.

When police tried to arrest Warren on April 14, the court filing says, the CIA agent wasn't home, and was reportedly staying in a motel under a fake name.

It was further reported to law enforcement officers that Warren may be under the influence of drugs, and that he was in possession of a gun. It was reported to law enforcement officers that Warren stated words to the effect of "they would kill me or I would kill them."

According to the filing, nearly two weeks later, on April 26, law enforcement found Warren at another motel. He tried to run. He struggled with police, allegedly trying to reach for his waistband (there was a loaded Glock in his shorts pocket).

The officers reported that they observed throughout the course of this incident that Warren appeared to be under the influence of drugs. Drug paraphernalia was found in Warren's pocket during the booking process at the jail.

His trial is set for June 21.

Read the filing by federal prosecutors here.

(H/T Politico)

Virginia - Law Enforcement - Law - Central Intelligence Agency - Andrew Warren

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n_armed_drugged-up_cia_agent.php

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George W. Bush on Arlen Specter: 'I can count on
this man...He's a firm ally.'

post from AMERICAblog News on 07 May 2010 10:01:38 AM. © AMERICAblog News

Brutal new ad on Arlen Specter from the Sestak campaign. It features the words of two prominent Republicans: George W. Bush and Arlen Specter -- and the photo of another key GOP leader: Sarah Palin.

video details and more

This ad really captures the cravenness of Specter. Taegan Goddard reports that the Morning Call's tracking poll now has the race even:

The latest Morning Call/Muhlenberg tracking poll shows Sen. Arlen Specter (D) and challenger Joe Sestak (D) tied at 43% each with 13% still undecided.

My gut tells me that while Democrats have been thinking they would vote for Specter again, they didn't really love him. They needed a reason to vote against him. Sestak's ad may have crystallized that.

Read The Full Article:
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specter-i-can.html

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Labor Department: 290,000 Jobs Created in April

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported in its seasonally adjusted calculations this morning that some 290,000 new jobs were created in April, far above the consensus of experts surveyed by Bloomberg earlier in the week. Those numbers were made better by the fact that only 66,000 of the new jobs were temporary Census hires, just two-thirds of what was expected. As large numbers of Americans returned to the labor force, the official unemployment rate rose to 9.9%. Some 15.3 million Americans are now officially out of work.

The U6 unemployment rate, an alternative measure that includes underemployed Americans and some who have become too discouraged to look for jobs, rose to 17.1%. The number of long-term unemployed, those without jobs for 27 weeks or more, rose to a new record high of 6.7 million.

Revisions showed February and March doing better than previously thought as well, rising 39,000 and 230,000 respectively.

Last April, 528,000 jobs were lost.

^{Click here for a large image}

Hiring of a total of about 970,000 temporary Census workers will continue through June, but the jobs will go away over the rest of 2010. So it falls to the private sector to make big gains over the next few months if a recovery in jobs is to sustain itself. Today's better numbers make that more of a possibility.

Employment rose 14,000 in construction, 44,000 in manufacturing, 20,000 in health care and 26,000 in temporary services. It held steady in the retail and wholesale trades. There were losses in transportation and warehousing.

Here's what the by now-iconic graph from Calculated Risk looks like:

^{Click here for larger image}

Christine Hauser at The New York Times reports:

"The economy is turning; unfortunately it is not improving as much as one would hope given the downturn," said Dan Greenhaus, chief economic strategist for Miller Tabak and Company. "As companies come out of the downturn they are going to be somewhat reluctant to at least immediately increase their work force."

As a result, more than 9.2 million still relied on part-time employment in April.

"We are looking at jobs growth in the vicinity of 150,000 to 175,000 per month going forward," Peter Cardillo, chief market economist for Avalon Partners said. "That means the unemployment rate is going to stay on high level ground for a while."

Friday’s jobless data was the latest to contribute to a picture of a slowly improving economy, and analysts hoped the employment numbers would help to fuel the momentum of upturns in business confidence. ...

As of yet, however, the improvements have not ushered in a sustained hiring. "I just don’t think the average person in the street thinks that we are even out of the recession, said John Canally, an economist for LPL Financial.

Today's numbers will undoubtedly contribute to a growing optimism even though caveats remain. Earlier in the week, other economic numbers had given analysts the jitters. The Institute for Supply Management reported a six-year high in manufacturing activity, with the index up for the ninth month in a row, with a rate of growth faster than any since June 2004. The employment index component of the manufacturing report was solidly up. But the non-manufacturing report from ISM was weak, and its employment index decreased. Retail activity for April as measured by same-store sales was not expected to be as strong as in March, but they turned out to be even weaker than expected. While consumers are spending more, they are doing so by drawing on savings and thanks to government benefits, many of which will soon expire.

Last Friday, presidential economic adviser Larry Summer said:

"The best way to put it is this: Forty years ago, one in 20 men [ages] 25 to 54, in America, was not working at a given point in time. ... Today, the number is not one in 20. It's one in five. And a good guess, based on extrapolations of trends in this area, is that when the economy recovers, five years from now, assuming we return to normal cyclical conditions, one in six men who are 25 to 54 will not be working at any point in time."

The BLS report also reported:

• The average workweek for production and non-supervisory workers rose to 33.4 hours.

• Average hourly earnings increased by 1 cent in April

• The civilian labor force participation rate rose to 65.2% in April.

• • • • •

SilverOz has a diary on this subject here. New Deal democrat has one here.

Read The Full Article:
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,000-Jobs-Created-in-April

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The Senate Hearts Big Banking! They Voted To
Protect Behemoth Banks, 61-33. We Won't Forget.

It wasn't even close.

I'd suggest that anyone who hasn't done it yet should find a small bank and move their accounts. Clearly, the people we elected aren't going to do anything about these monster banks:

A move to break up major Wall Street banks failed Thursday night by a vote of 61 to 33.
Three Republicans, Richard Shelby of Alabama, Tom Coburn of Oklahoma and John Ensign of Nevada, voted with 30 Democrats, including Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, in support of the provision. The author of the pending overall financial reform bill in the Senate, Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd, voted against it. (See the full roll call.)
The amendment, sponsored by Sens. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) and Ted Kaufman (D-Del.), would have required megabanks to be broken down in size and capped so that their individual failure would not bring down the entire system.
Under Brown-Kaufman, no bank could hold more than 10 percent of the total amount of insured deposits, and a limit would have been placed on liabilities of a single bank to two percent of GDP.
In practice, the amendment required the six biggest banks -- Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley -- to significantly scale down their size. It was touted as a way to end Too Big To Fail.
Though top Obama administration officials have not publicly opposed the amendment, its leading economists have opposed ending Too Big To Fail simply by breaking up the nation's financial behemoths. Austan Goolsbee and Larry Summers have both fought back against this idea, as has Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.
"This is certainly a defeat for those who are concerned about the dangers of financial concentration in this country," Kaufman said in a statement after the vote. "Some causes are worth fighting for, and for me, the concern about the risks 'too big to fail' banks pose to the American economy and people is deep and profound given the economic tragedy millions of American have endured. I believe the debate itself -- though failing to gain a majority of votes -- has helped to change attitudes about the degree of financial concentration and power these megabanks now represent."