Why the U.S. Justice Dept is investigating the
LIBOR scandal

post from US Politics | AMERICAblog News on 09 July 2012 08:00:25 PM. © US Politics | AMERICAblog News

This LIBOR scandal is both deep and wide. Wide enough to reach both sides of the Atlantic.Why both sides, you ask? Good question, since LIBOR stands for the London Interbank Offered Rate. We're still digging to understand, we at La Maison, but the the bits below may help.(By the way, you may find our earlier piece ? "LIBOR for Laymen" ? helpful to get you started. It explains the...

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The Chronicles of Mitt: July 9, 2012

post from Daily Kos on 09 July 2012 08:00:10 PM. © Daily Kos

Hello, human diary. It is I, Mitt Romney, your better.

There has been much hullabaloo over my vast wealth lately. I do not see what all the fuss is about; nonetheless, reporter units are now expressing skepticism over how I could have saved over one hundred million dollars in my Individual Retirement Account. Apparently, that is considered an unusual event? I think this is yet another example of the class divide between we wealthy Americans and the commoner units. If the commoners wanted to have Individual Retirement Accounts worth over one hundred million dollars, all they need to do is place one hundred million dollars in them. Or, technically speaking, to put things in them whose eventual valuation would be over one hundred million dollars, without actually ever claiming them at anywhere near that value when placing them in the account, due to severe tax complications involved, which may require the use of offshore shell accounts or other manipulations?but any commoner ought to be able to find an investment team that can guide them through the process.

That seems to be the main difference between wealth units and commoner units, Mr. Diary: better tax advice. That, and cars that are parked at the wrong height.

Other than that there is not much to report. During the holiday week I engaged in watersport. There is no progress on the vice presidential front. The bus has been in for a thorough medical examination, thanks to my new program, RomneyCare 2, and received a clean bill of health from the bus doctors. My inquiries as to how to fire the Supreme Court have not, as of yet, been answered to my satisfaction.

Now the holiday week is over; it is back to "the grind," as the commoner units say. I believe they call it the grind because they lack sufficient oil. I have always found the friendship of wealthy oil industry tycoons to be quite beneficial; perhaps the commoners simply need to acquire better friends.

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Will Tom Reed Denounce His Racist Supporters

post from Crooks and Liars on 09 July 2012 08:00:07 PM. © Crooks and Liars

Do you think racism is only something you find in rural parts of Georgia and Texas? Think again. WYSL (1040 AM) is in the Rochester, NY area and owned by Bob Savage and Judith Day. They run a Hate Talk format featuring reactionary GOP propagandists, sociopaths like Laura Ingraham, Rust Humphries, Dennis Miller, Jerry Doyle and Bill O'Reilly. Their local hate talk host is Bill Nojay, a Republican running for New York State Assembly. Radio sure has changed from the days when I got my broadcaster's license. Back then candidates had to resign when they declared for office-- and they were fired when they incited racial hatred the way Nojay does. Listen to his screed against progressive Democrat Nate Shinagawa, a third-generation Japanese American.

Nojay's vicious racism is usually reserved for his nasty comments about African-Americans and Latinos, but he's asserting that American-born Nate is "from the People's Republic." The People's Republic? You mean where so much of the money comes from to fund conservative corporate whores who vote for the "free trade" agenda that sends American jobs there? That People's Republic? And who knew that Japanese-Americans come from the People's Republic? Amazing what you learn on Hate Talk Radio!

enlarge Nojay's pal Tom Reed (on the right), who's running against Nate, consistently backs sending U.S. jobs to China and other low-wage hellholes. And Reed refuses to disavow Nojay and his blatant racism. Please listen to the Republican propaganda above and then think about what it means to have these people-- human garbage like Nojay, Savage and Reed-- controlling Congress. And even if it's just $3 or $5, consider helping Blue America's newest candidate, Nate Shinagawa. We covered his inspiring biographical story a week or two ago after his big primary victory and Thursday we compared his views on education to Nojay's pal Tom Reed's. There's a gap wide enough... well almost wide enough, for Reed to fit through.

How about that music too? These are really sick people. Too sick to own broadcast licenses, even one that's all about dog whistles for the GOP.

Cross-posted from Down with Tyranny blog

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Daily Kos Elections Polling Wrap: Will polling
pace accelerate as campaign pace accelerates

post from Daily Kos on 09 July 2012 08:00:07 PM. © Daily Kos

On balance, this was yet another quiet day on the polling front. However, for fans of our Daily Kos Elections Live Digest, you already know that it was anything but a quiet day on the campaign/electoral front.

So, is this the end of the holiday week polling lull, with data to flow like wine from this point forward? Or are lighter media budgets around the country equating to a much more sparse polling environment?

It would seem we are about to find out. For now, though, on to the numbers:

PRESIDENTIAL GENERAL ELECTION TRIAL HEATS:

NATIONAL (Gallup Tracking): Obama d. Romney (47-45)
NATIONAL (Rasmussen Tracking): Romney d. Obama (46-45)
NATIONAL (TIPP for Investors Business Daily/Christian Science Monitor): Obama d. Romney (43-42)

DOWNBALLOT POLLING:

CA-SEN (Field Poll): Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D) 51, Elizabeth Emken (R) 32
KY-06 (Public Opinion Strategies for Barr/NRCC): Rep. Ben Chandler (D) 47, Andy Barr (R) 42

A few thoughts, as always, await you just past the jump ...

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Barbour Says Mitt Romney Should Release More Tax
Returns

post from ThinkProgress on 09 July 2012 08:00:05 PM. © ThinkProgress

During an appearance on CNN’s Situation Room Monday evening, former Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour (R) appeared to agree with Democrats who are calling on Mitt Romney to release more tax returns. Asked, “should he release the tax returns,” Barbour quipped, “I would, but should it be an issue in a campaign? I don’t think it matters to diddly.” Watch it:

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FDL Movie Night: Broadcast Blues

post from Firedoglake on 09 July 2012 08:00:01 PM. © Firedoglake

Tonight?s guest Sue Wilson is a firebrand - smart, driven and articulate. A longtime journalist, she got fired up about how the public airways, which belong to the citizens, are controlled by mega-corps which do not act in the public interest. Broadcast[...]

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This can't be good: Chamber of Commerce weighs in
on cybersecurity

post from Daily Kos on 09 July 2012 07:28:30 PM. © Daily Kos

From CISPA legislation: From Electronic Frontier FoundationIf you were hoping that Congress was running out of time and ready to jettison their misguided cybersecurity efforts, keep hoping, but also keep vigilant. The Senate is still at it, and to make it even more bleak, have brought in the Chamber of Commerce to advise on a compromise bill they're attempting to craft.

The powerful business lobby panned an earlier version of a draft compromise that was prepared last month by staffers for Kyl and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), arguing that it took too much of a regulatory approach. The two senators are spearheading an effort to find a compromise on a controversial measure in Sen. Joe Lieberman's (I-Conn.) cybersecurity bill that would require critical infrastructure operators to meet a set of security standards.
The meeting will give the Chamber an opportunity to give a thumbs up or down to the latest version of the framework. Winning the support of the powerful lobby could help break the Senate's stalemate on cybersecurity before the legislative clock runs out.

The big hangup in the Senate has been the fact that the main bill they were working on actually required industries in critical infrastructure meet some basic requirements in protecting their own security. That, of course, is "job-killing regulation," and has been rejected by Senate Republicans. The Chamber is unlikely to care about the serious privacy issues that the bill poses.

The White House issued a veto threat, largely over the regulatory issues, but also over privacy concerns. No word from the White House yet on the current negotiations.

Contact your senators and tell them to oppose any version of cybersecurity legislation that would gut existing privacy laws.

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Hey, Just Keeping It Real

post from Talking Points Memo on 09 July 2012 07:00:41 PM. © Talking Points Memo

Maine Gov says he didn't mean to insult anyone when he said the IRS is the "new Gestapo" under 'Obamacare'. [...]

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Verizon says it can edit your access to Web sites
like the newspaper edits content

So, basically, Verizon is saying that it can pick and choose which Web sites Verizon broadband customers can access and which it can't, just like a newspaper picks and chooses which articles, or letters to the editor, it publishes.Which is an interesting argument since, as Jeff Jarvis notes, that means Verizon is saying that it owns the content of every Web site a Verizon customer accesses...

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U.S. Sees Hottest 12 Months And Hottest Half Year
On Record: NOAA Calls Record Heat A One-In-1.6-Million-Event

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has released its chart-filled ?State of the Climate Global Analysis? for June 2012:

The big stories are the heat and drought:

The average temperature for the contiguous U.S. during June was 71.2°F, which is 2.0°F above the 20^th century average. Scorching temperatures during the second half of the month led to at least 170 all-time high temperature records broken or tied. The June temperatures contributed to a record-warm first half of the year and the warmest 12-month period the nation has experienced since recordkeeping began in 1895.
According to the U.S. Drought Monitor, as of July 3, 56.0 percent of the contiguous U.S. experienced drought conditions, marking the largest percentage of the nation experiencing drought conditions in the 12-year record of the U.S. Drought Monitor.

How off-the-charts has the last year been? NOAA has done the math:

During the June 2011-June 2012 period, each of the 13 consecutive months ranked among the warmest third of their historical distribution for the first time in the 1895-present record. The odds of this occurring randomly is 1 in 1,594,323.

As meteorologist Dr. Jeff Masters puts it, “Thus, we should only see one more 13-month period so warm between now and 124,652 AD–assuming the climate is staying the same as it did during the past 118 years. These are ridiculously long odds, and it is highly unlikely that the extremity of the heat during the past 13 months could have occurred without a warming climate.”

Like a baseball player on steroids, our atmosphere has been “juiced” with human emissions of greenhouse gases, which means we are going to be breaking heat records at an “unnatural” pace for a long, long time. Climatologist Richard Alley offers a different analogy in a column today:

Humans have made some extreme weather events more likely, and they are happening.
Just as a back-street gambler might beat someone in an honest game but has a better chance with loaded dice, Nature might have caused this summer?s weather but we gave it a boost. More importantly, under business as usual, today?s children may one day think of this summer as cool.

How extreme has the weather been in 2012?

The U.S. Climate Extremes Index (USCEI), an index that tracks the highest and lowest 10 percent of extremes in temperature, precipitation, drought and tropical cyclones across the contiguous U.S., was a record-large 44 percent during the January-June period, over twice the average value. Extremes in warm daytime temperatures (83 percent) and warm nighttime temperatures (70 percent) covered large areas of the nation, contributing to the record high value.

Here’s the chart:

Unfortunately, NOAA offers little near-term hope for alleviating the drought. Here’s their forecast through the end of September:

This does not bode well for US crops.

And since it tends to be hotter in a widespread drought, there’s every reason to believe the above average warmth will continue. Mother Nature is just getting warmed up!