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Quite a day. And tomorrow will be quite a day-er!
• Much more on this later, but Kamala Harris is still publicly standing strong against the 50-state settlement. Very good news.
• On top of everything else last night, there was a hostage resuce in Somalia by the same Navy SEAL unit that took out bin Laden. Here’s the President’s statement. How’d Bill McRaven handle this from the First Lady’s box?
• I’m willing to agree that Mitt Romney has flip-flopped on housing issues, but this attempted hit from Think Progress is a mess. Romney owns mortgage backed securities. So? There’s no indication that he had anything to do with the sign-off on foreclosures, which are largely at the discretion of servicers anyway. If the Schneiderman panel works out, he would be defending the rights of investors in MBS, people like Mitt Romney, who were themselves defrauded.
• Richard Cordray did have to withstand criticism at that House Financial Services committee hearing yesterday. I didn’t like that he said bank violations of the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act were “unintentional” and fixed. He does seem poised to go after servicers, however.
• If nothing else, the new panel on securitization adds to the exposure of the big banks, who get hit with a new lawsuit on their mortgage backed securities every day.
• One thing to keep in mind as we enter discussions on tax reform – the capital gains tax is set to rise sharply in 2013, some of it from the health care reform law.
• Gabby Giffords resigned from Congress in an emotional scene in the House today, but not before getting one last bill passed.
• Speaking of Giffords, this is really horrendous business in Missouri, with the targeting of female lawmakers with cross hairs.
• When will our elites realize that nobody will comparison shop after suffering a heart attack?
• Politifact again soils themselves trying to please wingnuts. Just put them out of business already.
• The Alliance for American Manufacturing calls out Matthew Yglesias for his Slate story I mentioned earlier in the day.
• Illinois AG Lisa Madigan sued Standard and Poor’s today, for violating consumer fraud and deceptive practices statutes in the state. I need to look into this a bit more before commenting.
• Huge crowds gathered in Tahrir Square today to mark the one-year anniversary of the Egyptian uprising. Some of the protesters haven’t left.
• Tim Geithner is a one-term Treasury Secretary. That does suggest that the right move is to draw out any bank resolutions until after next year.
• If Senate Democrats actually hold a vote on the carried interest loophole I’d be more than a little pleasantly surprised.
• Early polling in eight competitive House races shows that Republicans are in at least a little trouble and may not hold on to their majority.
• Jared Bernstein on the FHFA’s principal reduction aversion.
• The Joint Economic Committee estimates that GDP growth would fall by 1.7% if the payroll tax and unemployment insurance don’t get extended by the end of next month. 3.3 million unemployed Americans would lose benefits.
• The elites at Davos are starting to get nervous. Good.
• Sen Mark Kirk could see loss of some motor function even after he recovers from his stroke.
• The House will pass a repeal of the CLASS Act next week. The Obama Administration has already shut the long-term care insurance program down.
• Not only are corporations people, says Mitt Romney, they’re also not bad people.
• This is a particularly nasty domestic abuse case from a Marco Rubio staffer.
• I’m assuming that Newt Gingrich’s vow to potentially bomb Castro as President is just a reaction to Castro calling the GOP primary “the greatest competition of idiocy and ignorance the world has ever seen.”
• Google is starting to go evil with their new privacy rules.
• That Julian Assange chat show will air on Russia Today.
• Why is this guy the Democratic standard-bearer for a Senate seat in Arizona, again?
• There’s not much new in most State of the Union addresses.
• Michele Bachmann either will or won’t run for re-election, depending on when you ask her.
• What your favorite blog says about you. Hilarious (and introduced me to some new blogs!).
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About FDL News Desk
Triangulation in the age of Obama and Emmanuel:
Awesome way of rallying the base, guys.
Yes!
Time for women to rise up, urges Desmond Tutu
LINK.
• Why do the Wonkies want to point out that the capital gains tax is going up? Is Ezra a one-percenter now? The truth is when Jimmy Carter agreed to lowering the tax to 28% liberals were furious. The best we can expect from Obama is he will eventually let the Bush tax cuts expire. And those who hope for the best with Obama are usually disappointed.
• I don’t think JEC chairman’s reports represent that consensus of the committee, but I’m not sure. If it’s true that letting the payroll tax cut and unemployment extension expire would push us back into recession, that’s pretty sobering.
• “The greatest competition of idiocy and ignorance the world has ever seen.” Classic.
• I bet most people assumed that Google was already sharing their data across applications. It’s a bit intrusive, but compared to dealing with, say, Adobe Acrobat which wants to contact the mothership every single day to do Lord knows what (it’s a PDF reader for goodness sake!) Google seems pretty benign.
THis is a round up of msm led news, and a reply to same.
Sadly, it’s not about anything pro or anti veal pen . . .
Well, I misspoke, this IS all about veal kl;penning.
No news from from the fronts and fonts of the edges of our realities.
I become more and more disenchanted with FDL . . .
Where’s the verve, the heat, the protest, the general fucing over of us all, that FDL used to front?
Occupy is nice, but it ain’t covering the masses and salient issues we the huddled and dirty unwashed masses face on a daily basis.
Where’s the outrage? Change? Demands to create jobs for us all?
The shit that counts for us masses?
Occupy is a small percentage of the unemployed and disgruntled.
Millions and millions of us, some liely 50 million or more, sitting here, waiting for better . . .
Hoping for more.
Jobs, incomes, social services and health care, like in other countries.
Where’s the outrage FDL?
When will you have our backs?
I loath the dems ,but I do really like Kamala Harris .How she resides in a party with human sewage such as Jerry Brown is amazing .When I saw Brown and Newt dining together about a decade ago,I didn’t get it at the time,but I do now .Unlike Obama , who just doesn’t care about the poor ,sick and dying , Brown actually likes to hurt the sick and downtrodden .
:-)
Hey Larue, I think you expect too much from FDL and not enough from ourselves .Let’s you and me adumbrate a philosophical outline from which we can advance a platform .Actually I can do all the brainiac stuff ,but I’m not big on self-promotion .Let’s be honest there is no vanguard of lofty progressive thinking on which to rely .