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I don’t mean to gloat, but let me gloat about the fact that I won the internal FDL staffer NCAA tournament pool. Picking UConn to reach the national championship game did it for me. As a reward, I have informed the rest of the competitors that they need to make out a check to the charity of my choice, the Scooter Libby legal defense fund.
Links:
• Lots of divisions today about arming the Libyan rebels on the Sunday shows. Harry Reid said we don’t know enough, while Lindsey Graham was all for it. But even Republicans have concerns about another instance of arming insurgents and inviting blowback. Meanwhile, former national security advisor Gen. James Jones is probably not the White House’s favorite alumni at the moment.
• Congressional leaders really only have until Tuesday to get a 2011 budget agreement done, and there are still massive differences. You could see yet another short-term stopgap.
• Democrats may take the offensive and propose a new millionaire’s bracket as the longer-term budget battle begins.
• If the fact that the Federal Reserve bailed out Gadhafi’s central bank just passes by unnoticed, then you’ll know we no longer have a very functional democracy. Matt Taibbi adds that he has a story coming up on the Fed bailouts in the next issue; I can’t wait.
• Hard for me to be shocked by anything that happens on Wall Street, but who are these people buying subprime mortgage bonds again? Have they been asleep for a long time?
• Annie Lowrey gets beyond the boosterism and talks straight about TARP, whether it worked and for whom. Good piece.
• Unions have begun to collect signatures in Ohio for a referendum on the anti-union law signed by the Governor last Thursday. They have 90 days to gather the 230,000 signatures needed to trigger a November election.
• Ted Kaufman would have been a good CFPB Director, but he passed on it, according to Bloomberg. Former Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm apparently passed on it too. I guess nobody wants to sit in dry dock while waiting for confirmation.
• The pushback from Administration courtiers on Jim Messina has been pretty fierce. They are welcome to try to rewrite history. Best of luck to them.
• The rumor about a US-Saudi deal, where the Arab League supported a Libya intervention in exchange for letting Saudi Arabia send troops to Bahrain, has certainly been borne out by events (Bahrain’s now shutting down opposition newspapers). And it shows the pitfalls of relying so heavily on assent from the Arab League in this.
• Syria named a new Prime Minister, but it won’t lead to the protest movement being satisfied. Tens of thousands marched in funeral processions today for those killed in the uprising.
• Protests in Afghanistan over the burning of a Koran in the United States contuined for a third straight day. The fact that I haven’t heard of a single protest anywhere else in the Arab world besides in Afghanistan makes me think that the protests there aren’t really about Korans.
• Police opened fire on protesters in Yemen today. Are you noticing a pattern the way I am? Would the protest camp in Trafalgar Square do the trick?
• Pro-Gadhafi forces continue to shell Misurata, as another Gadhafi envoy flies to Europe, this time Athens, to talk about a resolution to the crisis. At least there are talks.
• LA City Councilwoman Janice Hahn did not get the 60% required for an official California Democratic Party endorsement in the special Congressional election to replace Jane Harman. She did, however, go negative by questioning the party loyalty of Secretary of State Debra Bowen because she was a Republican back in 1984. Incidentally, Hahn was a 2008 DNC delegate for Hillary Clinton, a former Goldwater girl (Disclosure: I’m an appointed CDP delegate of Bowen’s and voted yesterday to endorse Bowen).
• Terrible suicide bombing attacks at a shrine in Pakistan kill at least 41.
• BP will restart deepwater drilling in the Gulf of Mexico on the same day that the owner of the Deepwater Horizon rig, Transocean, handed out bonuses for the “best year in safety performance in our company’s history.”
• Dissident IRA activists killed a policeman in Omagh with a booby-trap car bomb.
• An administrative panel in California allowed a gay midshipman to serve despite the fact that the military’s don’t ask don’t tell policy is still in effect.
• Labor groups criticized OMB for moving too slowly on new workplace safety regulations.
• How could it possibly be legal for the RNC to use debates as fundraisers.
• Felix Salmon has the latest on the New York Times/Huffington Post verbal sparring, which includes NYT writing an entire story based on a HuffPo scoop without crediting them.
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Go Debra!
Opponents of SB 5 fill Kasich’s email inbox
“During nearly two months of drama between Republican state Sen. Shannon Jones’ introduction of Senate Bill 5 – which limits collective-bargaining rights for Ohio’s 360,000 public employees – and Kasich’s signing the bill Thursday, the governor received thousands of emails voicing strong opinions on the bill.
“The breakdown: 16 percent in favor, 84percent against, according to a Dispatch analysis of more than 14,000 emails obtained through a public-records request. ”
LINK.
Florida prison privatization proposals open door for politically [GOP] connected GEO Group
LINK.
Annie Lowrey is the Tom Friedman of the left blogosphere. I just don’t get what people see in her work. With the kind of journalistic talent we have on the left (I’d venture to say every FDL blogger is a better writer) she is way more successful than she deserves to be. Bah!
You are right about the protests in Afghanistan. It’s not about the Koran. But it was rich listening to Ahmad Wali Karzai–rumored to be the most corrupt man in Afghanistan–blaming corruption for the violence.
They’re blaming the weather.
NATO to U.S.: We Need More Strikes in Libya
U.S. Agrees to Continue Combat Missions; Lack of U.S. Strikes [due to bad weather] Blamed for Rebel Losses
http://abcnews.go.com/International/nato-asks-us-continue-libya-air-strikes/story?id=13287530
David, tell me you can’t smell the stink re “who are these people buying subprime mortgage bonds again? ”
“The market burst into the spotlight in March when an unlikely buyer stepped in: AIG, the giant insurer that had to be bailed out by the government because of its own bad bets on subprime mortgage bonds.
AIG offered to buy back a pool of bonds that the Federal Reserve had taken off its hands during the crisis. AIG’s $15.7 billion offer for the bonds, which have a face value of $30 billion, spurred other investors to consider making offers.”
RE “(Disclosure: I’m an appointed CDP delegate of Bowen’s and voted yesterday to endorse Bowen).—now if you could only get her to post the ‘Procedures for Usage’ of the voting machines like they were before she took office and which people used to hold the local election officials accountable. And if you get the ‘they’re proprietary’ don’t accept that game because the law allows for such when it’s in the interest of the public. Which it is.
“The fact that I haven’t heard of a single protest anywhere else in the Arab world besides in Afghanistan makes me think that the protests there aren’t really about Korans.”——–They’re not.
No degree, little experience pay off big
“Just in his mid-20s, Brian Deschane has no college degree, very little management experience and two drunken-driving convictions.
“Yet he has landed an $81,500-per-year job in Gov. Scott Walker’s administration overseeing environmental and regulatory matters and dozens of employees at the Department of Commerce. Even though Walker says the state is broke and public employees are overpaid, Deschane already has earned a promotion and a 26% pay raise in just two months with the state.
“How did Deschane score his plum assignment with the Walker team?
. . .
“His father is Jerry Deschane, executive vice president and longtime lobbyist for the Madison-based Wisconsin Builders Association, which bet big on Walker during last year’s governor’s race.”
LINK.
I never thought I’d see those words together, unless immediately followed by “on the poor and the middle class”.