MANY MORE LIKE THIS, PLEASE...

and this time don't forget long prison sentences!

Citigroup Fires Trader Amid Foreign Exchange Probe
Rohan Ramchandani Is First Banker to Lose Job in Global Currency Investigation
By Katie Martin
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Updated Jan. 10, 2014 3:41 p.m. ET

LONDON—A senior Citigroup Inc. currency trader in London has been fired in connection with a global investigation into alleged efforts to manipulate foreign exchange markets, two people familiar with the matter said.

Rohan Ramchandani, formerly the bank's head of European "spot" foreign-exchange trading, is the first banker to lose his job as a result of the global currency market probe.

ANOTHER PROBLEM WITH MOVEMENT CONSERVATIVES

When they do get some power, they don't use it for the good of the country. Issa should be going after confirmed liar James Clapper, not Sebelius.

Issa threatens perjury probe of Sebelius

By Jonathan Easley
January 08, 2014, 04:51 pm
THE HILL

House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) on Wednesday accused Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius of providing “false and misleading” testimony to Congress and threatened to open an investigation.

“Providing false or misleading testimony to Congress is a serious matter,” Issa warned in the letter. “Witnesses who purposely give false or misleading testimony during a Congressional hearing may be subject to criminal liability.”

PEOPLE IN THE MILITARY ARE CALLED "THE BEST & BRIGHTEST" BY FAR TOO MANY...

media folks when the truth is they are neither.  The Americans who battled in Fallujah are certainly idiots:

Falluja’s Fall Stuns Marines Who Fought There
By RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr.
JAN. 9, 2014
MY Times

Adam Banotai was a 21-year-old sergeant and squad leader in the Marine Corps during the 2004 invasion of Falluja, a restive insurgent-held city in Iraq. ... “I don’t think anyone had the grand illusion that Falluja or Ramadi was going to turn into Disneyland, but none of us thought it was going to fall back to a jihadist insurgency,” he said. “It made me sick to my stomach to have that thrown in our face, everything we fought for so blatantly taken away.”

What about the WMD???

SOMETHING ELSE THE GASBAGS WON'T TELL YOU

After years of hyping the murder rate in Chicago, they seem to have gone silent about the fact that in 2013, the number of murders dropped significantly:

Chicago police say 2013 saw dramatic drop in homicides and other violent crime
Published January 01, 2014
Associated Press
FOX NEWS

CHICAGO – Following a year when Chicago led the nation in homicides with more than 500, the city's Police Department said Wednesday that in 2013 the city recorded the fewest killings since 1965 and saw its overall crime rate fall to level not seen since 1972.

Despite the fact that the above AP article was found on the FOX News website, not one of the FOX News shows mentioned it according to LexisNexis. Here are the most recent mentions of "Chicago" and "murder":

1. Stossel Matters
Fox News Network, April 30, 2013 Tuesday, NEWS; Domestic, 706 words, Bill O'Reilly
2. Factor Follow-Up
Fox News Network, February 15, 2013 Friday, NEW; Domestic, 972 words, Juan Williams
3. Factor Follow-Up
Fox News Network, February 4, 2013 Monday, NEW; Domestic, 1207 words, Bill O'Reilly

FATS GOT SOME PUSHBACK FROM AL ROKER

By itself, it doesn't amount to much but it adds to the growing awareness that Rush Limbaugh is a liar.

'Stuff It!’: Al Roker Fires Back at Limbaugh’s ‘Polar Vortex’ Conspiracy
by Matt Wilstein | 2:22 pm, January 8th, 2014
MEDIAITE

On Tuesday, Al Roker took to Twitter to debunk Rush Limbaugh’s conspiracy theory about the “liberal” media’s use of the term “polar vortex” to help further their “global warming agenda.” Roker’s comments echoed similar statements made by AccuWeather meteorologist Bernie Rayno, who accused Limbaugh of “politicizing” the issue.

PunditFact on Rush Limbaugh

The new program by the PolitiFact folks catches Fats Limbaugh in quite a few whoppers.  Here are some amusing ones:

- Says it's not "accidental" that the villain in the Batman movie is named Bane.
- People "can't go fishing anymore because of Obama."
- "President Obama . . . wants to mandate circumcision."

WHAT'S HAPPENED TO CBS NEWS?

It hasn't gone entirely FAUX News but it has botched 3 current issues: Benghazi, Clean Energy and the NSA's spying.

TIDBIT FROM A BOOK I'M READING

The Conservative Press in Twentieth-Century America is a fascinating collection of historical essays on what we now call the Noise Machine. The article on "The Constitutional Review," a magazine published from 1917 to 1929, mentions the Supreme Court case Nebbia v. New York (1934) as a landmark decision affirming the power of the government to enact social legialation:

Under our form of government the use of property and the making of contracts are normally matters of private and not of public concern. The general rule is that both shall be free of governmental interference. But neither property rights [8] nor contract rights [9] are absolute; for government cannot exist if the citizen may at will use his property to the detriment of his fellows, or exercise his freedom of contract to work them harm. Equally fundamental with the private right is that of the public to regulate it in the common interest.

Here are the footnotes:

[ Footnote 8 ] Munn v. Illinois, 94 U.S. 113, 124 , 125 S.; Orient Ins. Co. v. Daggs, 172 U.S. 557, 556 , 19 S.Ct. 281; Northern Securities Co. v. United States, 193 U.S. 197, 351 , 24 S.Ct. 436; and see the cases cited in notes 16-23, infra.

[ Footnote 9 ] Allgeyer v. Louisiana, 165 U.S. 578, 591 , 17 S.Ct. 427; Atlantic Coast Line R. Co. v. Riverside Mills, 219 U.S. 186, 202 , 31 S.Ct. 164, 31 L.R.A.(N.S.) 7; Chicago, B. & Q.R. Co. v. McGuire, 219 U.S. 549, 567 , 31 S.Ct. 259; Stephenson v. Binford, 287 U.S. 251, 274 , 53 S.Ct. 181, 87 A.L.R. 721.

NO MATTER WHAT FATS LIMBAUGH SAYS...

The War on Poverty was a success.  These percentage of Americans statistics are from the Current Population Survey Annual Social and Economic Supplement for the years 1959 to 1969:

The later 60s were no fluke as further research has shown, even with an expanded measure of poverty (SPM):

MORE CONSERVATIVE VALUES...

Pettiness and Vindictiveness.  It seems that Gov Christie or one of his close aides retaliated against a Democratic mayor in NJ because the mayor didn't endorse Christie.  As is so often the case, other people bore the brunt of the retaliation.

Big Trouble
Josh Marshall – January 8, 2014, 11:50 AM EST
TPM

As I've written several times, this Christie Bridge Scandal is far more potentially damaging for Christie that it might seem on its face because its fits so perfectly with the negative view (as opposed to the positive view) of Chris Christie. That is, that he and his crew are thugs and bullies. We have basically demonstrable evidence that one of Christie's top aides instructed Christie's crony at the Port Authority, David Wildstein, to create the series of massive traffic jams in the city whose Mayor wouldn't endorse the Governor.

 And these emails sound very Sopranos-esque. "Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee," Christie Deputy Chief of Staff Bridget Anne Kelly told David Wildstein, according to emails obtained by TPM. "Got it," Wildstein replied.

WHY ISN'T THIS BIG NEWS?

The National Security Agency task force report contained a remarkable piece of information on p. 106:

Our review suggests that the information contributed to terrorist investigations by the use of section 215 telephony meta-data was not essential to preventing attacks and could readily have been obtained in a timely manner using conventional section 215 orders.

and on pp. 122-23:

It is noteworthy that the section 215 telephony meta-data program has made only a modestcontribution to the nation’s security. It is useful to compare it, for example, to the section 702 program, which we discuss in the next Part of our Report. Whereas collection under section 702 has produced significant information in many, perhaps most, of the 54 situations in which signals intelligence has contributed to the prevention of terrorist attacks since 2007, section 215 has generated relevant information in only a small number of cases, and there has been no instance in which NSA could say with confidence that the outcome would have been different without the section 215 telephony meta-data program. Moreover, now that the existence of the program has been disclosed publicly, we suspect that itis likely to be less useful still.

ANOTHER NARRATIVE CONTRADICTION

The radio gasbags routinely claim the Federal government can't do anything besides defense right & sometimes not even defense.  On the other hand, private sector radio ads, at least on Clear Channel's Tucson station KNST, talk about how great H.A.R.P.  is despite the fact that it's a Federal program.

GEORGE WILL AND THE FREE MARKET FAIRY

P.M. Carpenter caught this bit of moral idiocy from Will:

Now [we conservatives] know that a quicker, surer method [to political dominance] is to have progressives wield power for a few years. This will validate the core conservative insight about the mischiefs that ensue when governments demonstrate their incapacity for supplanting with fiats the spontaneous order of a market society ...

Great Britain provides a stunning example of that "spontaneous" order:

The movement to regulate child labour began in Great Britain at the close of the 18th century, when the rapid development of large-scale manufacturing made possible the exploitation of young children in mining and industrial work. The first law, in 1802, which was aimed at controlling the apprenticeship of pauper children to cotton-mill owners, was ineffective because it did not provide for enforcement. In 1833 the Factory Act did provide a system of factory inspection. SOURCE:  "child labour." Encyclopaedia Britannica. Encyclopaedia Britannica Online Academic Edition. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2014. Web. 06 Jan. 2014.

SOMETHING ELSE I DON'T REMEMBER ABOUT THE 60s

I've heard of the Rat Pack but Kabaservice (p. 161) has really done his homework to find out about a conservative faction of the New Jersey Young Republicans in 1966:

In late January 1966, American newspaper readers made the acquaintance of the Rat Finks, the conservative faction of the New Jersey Young Republicans. Stories revealed that the self-styled Rat Finks had enlivened YR gatherings throughout the previous year with renditions from their song book, which gave lyric form to the youthful conservative worldview.

One song advocated hanging moderate Republicans such as William Scranton, Nelson Rockefeller and New Jersey Senator Clifford Case from a sour apple tree.

One mock-lamented, in thick minstrel dialect, the killings of civil rights workers in Alabama, while another extolled the joys of "Riding through the Reich/In my Mercedes-Benz/Shooting all the kikes..."

Still another, sung to the tune of "Where have all the flowers gone?", inquired:

"Where has all the money gone? Gone to taxes/
Where have all the taxes gone? Gone to welfare/
Where has all the welfare gone?  Gone to niggers."

MONDAY TIDBITS

- It's a shame that we won't have miserable bitch Lynn Cheney to kick around as much because she's decided to drop out of the Wyoming Senate race against GOP incumbent Mike Enzi.  Although it was very likely, it would have been a big plus for the Democrats if this wackadoodle had beaten Enzi in the primary.

- Why is it that the banksters only get fines instead of prison time?  JP Morgan is reported to settle with the Feds over it's abetting of Bernie Madoff.  The amount is supposed to be about $2 Billion so total fines for banksters since 2007 is approaching $90 Billion and we haven't gotten the full impact of the LIBOR & FOREX fines.

- Hong Kong has been rated #1 by the Heritage Foundation for economic freedom but contrary to wingnut beliefs, that doesn't automatically mean political freedom:

Thousands march in Hong Kong in escalating battle for democracy
Wed, Jan 01 05:19 AM EST

By James Pomfret

HONG KONG (Reuters) - Thousands protested in Hong Kong on Wednesday pressing China to allow full democracy in the city as a battle intensifies over Beijing's attempts to control the outcome of a planned direct election for the city's leader in 2017.

Protesters at the annual New Year's Day democracy rally shouted slogans demanding full democracy in 2017, with a key condition being the open nominations of candidates so that anyone, including China critics, can run for office.

But Chinese officials and leftist newspapers have rejected that, citing the city's mini-constitution that states all nominees must be endorsed by a 1,200-strong election committee, which is stacked with Beijing loyalists.

CAN'T WE JUST IGNORE THESE PEOPLE?

I mean people like Bill Kristol and Peggy Noonan who have made a habit of being wrong, irrelevant, ignorant and very partisan. 

MAYBE THE REACTION WAS DELAYED BY THE HOLIDAYS

Last night, the Coast to Coast AM show was devoted to why Jahi McMath should not be taken off life support and Mike Huckabee went several steps further down Psycho Street with his comments:

Fox News host Mike Huckabee on Saturday warned that a California girl who was declared brain dead after tonsil surgery last month could lead to situations like Nazi death camps and forced abortions in China if the hospital took her off life support.