C&L's Late Night Music Club: The 50 State
Strategy with The Railbenders (CO)

post from Crooks and Liars on 13 April 2009 11:00:00 PM. © Crooks and Liars

Title: One Foot in the GraveArtist: The Railbenders
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Happy Monday, everyone. This week's installment of LNMC's 50 State Strategy comes courtesy of C&L reader Steve L. The Railbenders (Denver) have quite a way with unpretentious country/rockabilly toetappers like "One Foot in the Grave". Enjoy!

Every Monday, C&L's Late Nite Music Club will feature an up-and-coming act from every state, alphabetically by state, as part of LNMC's 50 State Strategy. Know a band or artist that you think is the best in their state? Email suggestions to latenitemusicclub [at] gmail.com.

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My Whereabouts the Next Few Days

post from Open Left - Front Page on 13 April 2009 10:41:11 PM. © Open Left - Front Page

Programming note: My own posting is going to be light over the next 48 hours as I'm on travel to[...]

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he-next-few-days

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Daily Forex Commentary for April 14, 2009

post from Jutia Group on 13 April 2009 10:31:00 PM. © Jutia Group

April 14, 2009

Forex Traders Will Be Looking for Solid Evidence of Recovery

Trading was light and thin in the Forex markets today as some money centers in both Asia and Europe took an extra day off following the Easter holiday weekend. Those who decided to trade had their way…

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MN-Sen: Will Justice Who Donated To Coleman
Recuse Himself From The Appeal

post from MyDD on 13 April 2009 10:25:13 PM. © MyDD

Last week, Senate Guru dilligently traced the partisan makeup of the Minnesota Supreme Court -- which will be hearing Coleman's next appeal -- over at his site and then over the weekend Down With Tyranny noted that one of the court's justices,[...]

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"Nobody Makes It"

post from TalkLeft on 13 April 2009 10:24:00 PM. © TalkLeft

Fascinating piece from Bloomberg on the little-understood "stress tests." According to Bloomberg:

"Regulators are using two economic scenarios for the tests. The first is a 'baseline' forecast of 8.4 percent unemployment and 2 percent economic contraction in 2009, followed by 2.1 percent economic growth and an 8.8 percent jobless rate in 2010. The other is a 'more adverse' scenario, with 8.9 percent unemployment and 3.3 percent contraction in 2009, followed by a 10.3 percent jobless rate and 0.5 percent growth in 2010."

[More...]

Trouble is, the unemployment rate is already exceeding the "more adverse" scenario. Indeed, according to Calculated Risk "the baseline case is no longer useful...the more adverse case is the new baseline."

So if the "more adverse scenario" plays out again--and that's certainly a possibility--the banks are going to be in deep, deep trouble.

How bad is it going to be? Here's Paul Miller, an analyst at FBR Capital Markets in Arlington, Virginia:

“The bottom line is if the unemployment rate peaks at 10 percent these banks can make it through. But if it peaks closer to 12 percent, nobody makes it. Or very few people make it.”

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It's Just Business

post from Talking Points Memo on 13 April 2009 10:24:00 PM. © Talking Points Memo

Dana Perino joins Mark Penn at Burson-Marsteller.[...]

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Obama Administration Has No Comment on State
Secrets Legislation

post from Daily Kos on 13 April 2009 10:20:05 PM. © Daily Kos

Greg Sargent follows up with the White House on pending legislation regarding state secrets:

The White House is declining to say whether the Obama administration will support legislation introduced by Senate Democrats that would roll back the use of the "state secrets privilege," one of Bush’s most controversial legal tools....

The White House’s silence on the bill will give more fodder to critics who charge that Obama has broken a campaign promise to dramatically scale back use of the Bush legal maneuver and wants the latitude to use it himself. It also sets up a potential showdown with Senate Dems who continue to view the legislation as crucial to rolling back Bush-era abuses....

The legislation — which represented the consensus view of the Democratic Party a year ago — would drastically limit use of the state secrets privilege, which is the invocation of national security to justify government secrecy and get anti-government lawsuits tossed out of court. The bill was reintroduced this year by Senators Russ Feingold, Patrick Leahy, and Ted Kennedy in response to Obama’s use of the legal tool, with Feingold calling the need for the legislation "urgent."

Despite Obama’s campaign promise, the Obama Department of Justice has repeatedly invoked the state secrets privilege, most recently in a lawsuit against government warantless wiretapping, prompting many legal observers to conclude that Obama was mimicking Bush’s approach.

In response to my questions, a White House spokesperson declined to say whether the Obama administration would support the legislation. Earlier this month, Attorney General Eric Holder said that he had ordered a comprehensive review of the state secrets doctrine, and promised a report on it in the "not too distant future."

Complicating matters a bit further, a couple of prominent members of the Obama administration, Secretary of State Clinton and Vice President Biden, were cosponsors of the Feingold/Leahy/Kennedy legislation. This legislative effort is becoming more critical. The previous Congress failed to assert itself against the unitary executive, leaving the door open for the abuses of the Bush administration and now the the very real likelihood that those abuses will go unanswered.

Congress's actions now will determine if the balance of power in our government will be permanently shifted in favor of the unitary executive. If it's not rolled back now, in the wake of the most disgusting and extreme abuses of power imaginable, it may never be.

Update: Ambinder has more:

They no-commented me last week, and they're stonewalling Greg Sargent this week: the White House refuses to say whether the President supports the State Secrets Protection Act in Congress. As a candidate, Obama supported the principles espoused in a similar piece of legislation, but he did not sign on to the bill as a cosponsor. My reporting leads me to believe that senior administration officials, including the White House counsel, Gregory Craig, oppose the current version of the legislation because they believe it would overturn an important, established precedent and weaken the ability of the president to protect national security....

Make no mistake: Obama will be rolling back the spirit, if not the fact, of a campaign promise by opposing this bill.

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Monday Night TV and Open Thread

post from TalkLeft on 13 April 2009 10:18:00 PM. © TalkLeft

Is anyone besides me watching Dancing With the Stars or "24" tonight? If not, what are you watching?

This is an open thread.

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Race Jealousy was the Motive Behind
Torture-Rape-Murder of Interracial Couple by Black Marines

I don't know how I managed not to see or hear about this atrocity. It must have been all the ecstasies over Obama's election to the Presidency that the news was drowned out. In fact, the murders were discovered some two weeks before. Someone over at Jack & Jill Politics linked the story update yesterday; of course, the Reichwing have been braying about this for all its been worth since November. Under oath during the preliminary hearing of the four black Marines charged with the killings, a top investigator who surveyed the murder scene confirmed that race was a factor in the murder of the Pietrzaks. The Marines were jealous and enraged that Quiana Jenkins-Pietrzak had just married their sergeant and superior officer, Jan Pawel Pietrzak-- and refused to give them the time of day.

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"N----- Lover" was written on the wall near the master bedroom and on a bathroom mirror, Riverside County Homicide Investigator Benjamin Ramirez testified at a preliminary hearing, according to the News. But even more shocking, prosecutors say, is the fact that those responsible for the brutal homicide of the 24-year-old Marine and his 26-year-old wife are four Black fellow Marines.

Prosecutors allege that the Marines - Pvt. Emrys John, 18; Lance Cpl. Tyrone Miller, 20; Pvt. Kesuan (Psycho) Sykes, 21 and Pvt. Kevin Cox, 20 - burst into the Pietrzak's home in Temecula, Calif., with shotguns, and tied up and tortured the couple. They also repeatedly raped Quiana, before John shot them both in the head, prosecutors say.

Why it took so long for the authorities to confirm that it was a hate crime is beyond comprehension. Were they under pressure by the Marines to limit the scope of the investigation? The Wikipedia entry on the couple have links to several crime reporters' stories intimating that the brutality of the murders could not have been motivated by simple robbery; that there had to be a much stronger reason why. Furthermore, the bereaved mothers, Henryka Pietrzak-Varga and Glenda Faye Williams-Jenkins have steadfastly refused to believe the findings of Riverside D.A.'s Dan DeLimon's office.

The victims' mothers wept during the two-day hearing.

"We're going to visit our children at the grave," Henryka Pietrzak-Varga of Bensonhurst said later. "That's all we have left after this."

Three things jump out at me about these murders:

Sgt. Pietrzak was a Polish immigrant who became an American. He was immediately drawn to Quiana Jenkins for herself. I have heard about young white men in the military who have been marrying African American women (as well as Asian Americans and Latina Americans). As a new American, Pietrzak, in choosing his wife, seemed immune from racism predicating his actions on important decisions like marriage. Most Americans from immigrant backgrounds have tended to shy away from African Americans, because we were/are considered to be the bottom of the standard of what is an American. There were the exceptions found among every European immigrant group that has come to the United States: Italians, Irish, Greeks, Germans and now Polish. When I have seen biracial couples on television, usually during a news program about military issues, the couples look well-spoken, if not well-dressed, and appear as if they are going places and doing things, except for this obstacle or problem. Racism is not the issue. As there are fewer black men who are not going to jail, black women sometimes can't always be picky. They have to find someone with mutual interests, who treats them well, and who will love them. Sgt. Pietrzak loved his wife. He loved Quiana, and she loved him. I am convinced of that from all I have read and from the wedding photographs. She was "a good girl." The girl next door who had a master's degree, and a responsible role in providing information and care for black infants. And he was a good guy and a good friend who loved his country. They were newlyweds who were going places until these creatures broke into their home and ended their lives.

Sgt. Pietrzak came from Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, New York. Yes, that Bensonhurst. Bensonhurst was the scene of one of the most despicable race incidents in New York City during the Eighties: the baseball-bat beating and shooting of 16-year-old Yusef Hawkins, which resulted, by the way, from race jealousy by the mostly young male Italian Americans. Nowadays, Bensonhurst is more like a little United Nations than the predominantly Italian American community that it was at the time of Hawkins' slaying. Eastern Europeans, East Indians and Bangladeshi, Latinos and Asians now live there. So things may have changed in Bensonhurst by the time Pietrzak grew up into manhood. Enough for him to see Quiana as she was, not as a color or a threat.

There have been various articles in the blogosphere about the paucity of recruits to fight the illegal war in Iraq. Blacks in particular have shied away from joining in record numbers after hearing the worst from friends and relatives and the news. I've read of recruiting officials trying to get as many bodies as they can, using any possible inducement. In desperation, they've also recruited pronounced neo-Nazi types, misfits, ex-cons and gang members affiliated with the Crips and Bloods into the armed forces. These kinds of guys kill with no recriminations whatsoever for their actions. If they are the kinds of men we have loosed on the Iraqis, it's a wonder that the insurgency and Al Sadr hasn't done worse to us. Reading some of the comments to the articles about this killing, some former and current military men and Marines have piped up to say that these young men, who were still privates after a few years, were possibly a problem for the military before their rampage, and did not subscribe to the Marine motto of semper fi.

Such a waste. Such a terrible waste. My prayers go out to the mothers of these wonderful people. People talk about giving their best; their children were their best.

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Frederick Soddy: Lessons from a Little-Known
Crank

Sometimes a light of reason shines through the pablum, confusion, and truthiness that so dominates the traditional media's editorial pages. And, sometimes that light requires us to blink, to sit back and conceive, as it might force us to question[...]

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