SOME MORE GOOD NEWS

Liberals won the "1% vs. the 99%" discussion because even freaks like Mark Levin adopted that terminology.  Similarly, we've won the healthcare debate because even extremely conservative GOP senators like John Thune are speaking of "repeal and replace," not just repeal, when they talk about Obamacare.  (Source: Hugh Hewitt Show, 7/3/2012).

YES, TEXAS BLOWS

(h/t Raw Story)

A new report by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality ranks each state on a variety of healthcare measures and Texas the Bagger Wet Dream State came in LAST in overall healthcare:

State	Meter Score for Overall Health Care
MN	67.31
WI	67.2
ME	65.38
MA	64.87
IA	63.23
NH	63.21
UT	58.67
ND	57.89
VT	56.45
DE	56.44
SD	56.39
CT	53.33
NJ	53.24
NE	52.96
VA	52.68
RI	52.46
CO	50.91
WA	50.89
SC	50.88
MI	50.67
MT	50
MO	49.7
PA	49.36
HI	49.34
KS	49.09
ID	47.57
OR	46.67
DC	46.31
AZ	46.15
NC	45.97
OH	45.48
AL	44.02
WY	42.5
NY	42.36
IL	42.33
FL	42.11
CA	41.37
GA	40.79
AK	40.59
TN	40.59
NV	39.86
MS	39.05
IN	38.53
MD	38.25
LA	35
KY	33.11
NM	32.95
OK	32.83
AR	32.41
WV	31.96
TX	31.61

ANOTHER 2-MINUTE HATE OPPORTUNITY FOR MARK LEVIN

This time Judge Posner is the victim.   I'm getting the impression that Levin's Psycho World is starting to collapse all around him.

FAUX NEWS STILL AVOIDS THE LIBOR SCANDAL

Just did a LexixNexis search for FAUX News transcripts and still nada.

THE ECONOMIST STAYS ON TOPIC

And the topic is (or should be) the nationalization of the monster banks.  Other news outlets are beginning to catch on to the truly massive size of this scam but The Economist has been leading the way:

The rotten heart of finance

A scandal over key interest rates is about to go global
Jul 7th 2012 | from the print edition
The Economist

“This is the banking industry’s tobacco moment,” says the chief executive of a multinational bank, referring to the lawsuits and settlements that cost America’s tobacco industry more than $200 billion in 1998. “It’s that big,” he says.

As many as 20 big banks have been named in various investigations or lawsuits alleging that LIBOR was rigged. The scandal also corrodes further what little remains of public trust in banks and those who run them.

The sums involved might have been huge. Barclays was a leading trader of these sorts of derivatives, and even relatively small moves in the final value of LIBOR could have resulted in daily profits or losses worth millions of dollars. In 2007, for instance, the loss (or gain) that Barclays stood to make from normal moves in interest rates over any given day was £20m ($40m at the time).

The FSA has identified price-rigging dating back to 2005, yet some current and former traders say that problems go back much further than that. “Fifteen years ago the word was that LIBOR was being rigged,” says one industry veteran closely involved in the LIBOR process. “It was one of those well kept secrets, but the regulator was asleep, the Bank of England didn’t care and…[the banks participating were] happy with the reference prices.” Says another: “Going back to the late 1980s, when I was a trader, you saw some pretty odd fixings…With traders, if you don’t actually nail it down, they’ll steal it.”

MAYBE WE REALLY SHOULD THANK JUSTICE SCALIA

I posted below that we should thank him for being so wingnutty that Chief Justice Roberts decided to uphold Obamacare but it was partly in jest.  This interview with Judge Richard Posner, another conservative judge, indicates that I may have been correct:

"I've become less conservative since the Republican Party started becoming goofy," he [Posner] said.

"Because if you put [yourself] in his [Roberts] position ... what's he supposed to think? That he finds his allies to be a bunch of crackpots? Does that help the conservative movement? I mean, what would you do if you were Roberts? All the sudden you find out that the people you thought were your friends have turned against you, they despise you, they mistreat you, they leak to the press. What do you do? Do you become more conservative? Or do you say, 'What am I doing with this crowd of lunatics?' Right? Maybe you have to re-examine your position."

REMEMBER THE ENRON FRAUD IN CALIFORNIA?

Enron employees convinced electrical plant operators to take their systems offline to jack up the cost of electricity and now it seems the banksters wanted some of that action. (h/t Atrios)

Judge orders JPMorgan to explain withholding emails
By Erin Geiger Smith

Fri Jul 6, 2012 7:31am EDT

(Reuters) - A U.S. judge has ordered JPMorgan Chase & Co to explain why the court should not force the bank to turn over 25 internal emails demanded as part of an investigation into whether it manipulated electricity markets in California and the Midwest.

On Thursday, U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly gave the bank until July 13 to submit an explanation as to why the court should not enforce FERC's subpoenas. JPMorgan has asserted the emails are protected by the attorney-client privilege.

FERC has recently stepped up its efforts to end manipulation of U.S. power markets, and news of the subpoena followed a series of more advanced probes of other big Wall Street banks and a record $245 million penalty against Constellation Energy.

MORE WINGNUT CENSORSHIP

He will have succeeded in his fundamental goal: creating a permanent European-style welfare state. Jeff Kuhner is a psychotic conservative and in his post about the evils of Obamacare he wrote:

He [Obama] will have succeeded in his fundamental goal: creating a permanent European-style welfare state.

I left a comment - "This is good news." - and in a few minutes it was deleted.

UPDATE: Ooops!  My original comment re-appeared - perhaps there was a temporary glitch in the commenting software.

INTERESTING...

Almost all of the comments on the Economist article are anti-bankster.  I would have bet that at least 1/3rd would defend these sociopaths.

MITTENS (& THE GOP) LOSING THE TOP AND THE BOTTOM

The Gun Nuts (part of the Bottom) gave up on Mittens and the rest of the Gong Show months ago and recently, the Top 1% is doing the same.   Rupert Murdoch and Jack Welch have both expressed disappointment in Mittens and now the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal has joined them.

The WSJ editorial unintentionally pointed out the biggest Mittens flaw:

What they want to hear from the challenger is some understanding of why the President's policies aren't working and how Mr. Romney's policies will do better.

Mittens policies are the same failed policies conservatives have been pushing since the creation of the Laffer Curve.

THE FREE MARKET FAIRY IS ASS-BACKWARDS

As a firm believer in Truth, Justice and the American Way, I was astounded to learn that Moody's and S&P are going to downgrade Barclays BECAUSE some to the top crooks have resigned.

Departures prompt Barclays downgrade
By Sharlene Goff and Mark Wembridge
July 5, 2012 9:05 am
FINANCIAL TIMES

Moody’s warned that downgrades to rating and senior debt could be possible “if [the] bank proved unable to restore a stable management structure over the coming months”.

“The shareholder and political pressure on Barclays ... could lead to broader pressure on the bank to shift its business model away from investment banking and reform perceived failures in its business culture,” it said.

"Perceived failures" is a weasel term used to avoid the truth about Barclays.

S&P didn't use weasel words but worried that Barclays may not replace the criminals with other criminals:

S&P also raised the alarm over uncertainty at the bank and said its decision was based on the potential for a new chief executive to launch an overhaul of the bank’s activities.

It expressed particular concerns over the future direction of Barclays’ investment banking arm, which Mr Diamond led for more than a decade before he took over as chief executive.

“We believe that Mr Diamond was closely related to the growth and relatively resilient performance of the investment bank and was supportive of its strategic prominence within the group,” S&P wrote in its announcement.

I THINK THE ECONOMIST IS A CONSERVATIVE MAGAZINE

(h/t Atrios)

So it's nice to learn that even the Economist won't tolerate some free market fraud.

A GOVERNMENT-OWNED MANUFACTURING PLANT

I knew the Federal government owned the nuclear weapons labs like Livermore but I didn't know it was involved in more traditional weapons production.

Congress, White House fight over funding for tanks
By JOHN SEEWER
The Associated Press
ATLANTA JOURNAL CONSTITUTION

LIMA, Ohio — Rows of sand-colored armored vehicles ready for deployment are parked outside the nation's only tank manufacturing plant. It's where welders and machinists for more than three decades have built the Abrams tank, which former President George W. Bush once called "the most effective armored vehicle in the history of warfare."

General Dynamics Corp.'s land systems unit, which operates the government-owned plant, estimates that the cost of shutting down the plant and then restarting it would be $1.6 billion, while keeping it open with minimal production over four years would cost $1.4 billion.

MICHAEL SAVAGE, JUSTICE ROBERTS & THE NY TIMES

Savage is one of the clowns blaming seizure medications for the Roberts decision and he refers people to an 8/1/2007 article in the Times for support.  You can read the article here and although it does mention possible side effects of medication, it does not state that Roberts would inevitably have them if he took medication.

Here are the relevant excerpts:

But the drugs can have troubling side effects, including drowsiness or insomnia, weight loss or weight gain, rashes, irritability, mental slowing and forgetfulness. Many patients can be treated with minimal side effects, doctors say, but it may take trial and error to find the right drug.

“If he takes medication, he is likely to do fine and be seizure-free,” said Dr. Gregory L. Barkley, a neurologist who specializes in epilepsy and is clinical vice chairman of the neurology department at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit.

Dr. Barkley said he did not expect the illness or the treatment to affect the chief justice’s ability to do his job.

THE FUNDIES LOSE ANOTHER ONE

This time in the crucial swing state of Ohio.  They wanted to put a constitutional amendment on the ballot in Ohio this November and they needed to get about 385,000 signatures.  They got about 30,000 - less than 10%.

I think the GOP has ridden the Fundie jackass about as far as it can go and that's why we had shift to another kind of absolutism, the so-called "constitutional conservatism."

GUESS WHO HASN'T COVERED THE BARCLAYS/LIBOR SCANDAL YET?

A NexisLexis search for "Barclays" on FAUX News returned 0 results.  On the other hand, FAUX Business Channel has covered the story:

1. News for Barclays site:http://www.foxbusiness.com

   Telegraph.co.uk
   1. Barclays Chief Operating Officer Resigns
      

      Fox Business‎ - 18 hours ago

      Barclays PLC's (BCS) chief operating officer Jerry del Missier has resigned, the second senior executive to quit the U.K. bank Tuesday in the ...

2. Barclays CEO Diamond, COO del Missier Resign | Fox Business

   www.foxbusiness.com/news/2012/.../barclays-ceo-bob-diamond-quit...

   23 hours ago – Barclays chief executive Bob Diamond and chief operating officer Jerry del Missier both quit on Tuesday, the highest-profile casualties of an ...

3. Barclays Chief Operating Officer Jerry del Missier Resigns | Fox ...

   www.foxbusiness.com/.../barclays-chief-operating-officer-jerry-del-...

   19 hours ago – Jerry del Missier, chief operating officer of Barclays PLC (BCS), resigned from the bank, the second senior executive to quit Tuesday in the ...

4. Barclays Chairman Exits as Libor Scandal Deepens | Fox Business

   www.foxbusiness.com/.../barclays-chairman-resigns-amid-libor-scan...

   1 day ago – Barclays Chairman Marcus Agius fell on his sword on Monday, becoming the most high-profile casualty of the $452 million Libor scandal that ...

5. Correction to Barclays' Bob Diamond Resignation News | Fox ...

   www.foxbusiness.com/.../correction-to-barclays-bob-diamond-resign...

   1 day ago – U.K. bank Barclays PLC (BARC.LN) Tuesday announced the resignation of Bob Diamond as Chief Executive and a Director of Barclays with ...

ACADEMIC SNARK

I can't recall who said this other than that it was a male graduate of Cambridge University and it was a snark attack on another famous English university: "Oxford has taken up so many lost causes it has become a lost cause."   In the future, we may say something similar about the University Chicago's market fundamentalists.  In addition to freaks like Hayek and Friedman, I especially like this recent idiocy from one of UC's economic professors:

Special Report: Crisis forces "dismal science" to get real
By Sara Ledwith and Antonella Ciancio
LONDON | Tue Jul 3, 2012 2:52am EDT
(Reuters) -

The modern theoretical framework began to emerge in the 1980s by Nobel Prize winner Robert Lucas, the John Dewey Distinguished Service Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago. Lucas said economic models should be something you could put on a computer and run - "a mechanical artificial world populated by interacting robots." If it wasn't in the model, it couldn't happen. The collapse of the financial system, for example.

Others helped build on this idea.

After the turn of the century, Lucas even suggested economists had cracked one of the profession's biggest questions. "The central problem of depression-prevention has been solved," he wrote in 2003.

MARK LEVIN'S AMERIKA

The poor go to jail over unpaid misdemeanor fines while the frauds at the ratings agencies want to escape all accountability. 

JOHN ADAMS WAS ALSO A "CLASS WARRIOR"

In this matter, he basically followed Aristotle.  From Thompson's Adams study, p. 218:

The second and related task for Adams's lawgiver was to constitutionalize the natural social conflict between the few and the many. "The great art of lawgiving," he announced, "consists in balancing the poor against the rich in the legislature."³⁶ In sum, the great problem of constitutional construction was in reconciling aristocratic ambition with democratic envy.

The footnote [36] refers to vol. 6, page 280 of The Works of John Adams (1850-56)

WE KNOW THAT MADISON AND JEFFERSON WEREN'T FUNDIES

and according to a study of John Adams by C. Bradley Thompson, our 2nd President also wasn't a Fundie:

Ultimately, according to Adams, it is by examining the "Constitution of our Minds and Bodies" rather than through "supernatural Revelation" that we come to know our rights and moral obligations.³⁵ Such a premise or strategy—starting with man rather than with God—demonstrates how far Adams had ventured into the rational humanism of his age.

The footnote [35] refers to Adam's Diary and Autobiography, 1:42.