The Gang of Five, and How They Nearly Ruined Us

The little-known reason why investment banks got too big, too greedy, too risky, and too powerful.

By Daniel Gross
Posted Friday, Jan. 29, 2010, at 7:32 AM ET

The surviving investment banks are bristling at efforts aimed at recouping taxpayer losses and forestalling a repeat of the panic of 2008: congression­al proposals to tax bonuses, President Obama's planned tax on large banks' liabilities, and his suggestion that banks be prohibited from using taxpayer-insured funds for proprietary trading. That last proposal would " restrict lending, increase risk, decrease stability in the system, and limit our ability to help create jobs," says Steve Bartlett, CEO of the Financial Serv­ices Roundtable, the trade group for megabanks.

State of the Union: A Status Report on the Far Right

By Sara Robinson

Created 01/28/2010 - 2:13pm

As long as we're taking the measure of the country this week, let's look in on the far (and not so far) fringes of the right wing. What's up with them? And how worried should we be?

For the past several months, I've been trying to get a bead on the actual numbers of the far-right movement. To that end, I accrued a motley little collection of surveys, studies, and sociological research pulled together from here and there. I've been sort of walking around this pile, kicking at it, figuring out which pieces fit together, in the hope of getting a handle on exactly how many really scary people there are out there right now. It seemed like an important question to get answered.

Finally, I did what I should have done on Day One. I picked up the phone and called Chip Berlet [1] of Political Research Associates, who knows more about the hard research on the far right than anyone else in the country.

President Obama rumbles with House GOP

BALTIMORE — President Barack Obama on Friday accused Republicans of portraying health care reform as a "Bolshevik plot" and telling their constituents that he’s "doing all kinds of crazy stuff that's going to destroy America."

Speaking to House Republicans at their annual policy retreat here, Obama said that over-the-top GOP attacks on him and his agenda have made it virtually impossible for Republicans to address the nation’s problems in a bipartisan way.

Secret Banking Cabal Emerges From AIG Shadows: David Reilly

Commentary by David Reilly

Jan. 29 (Bloomberg) -- The idea of secret banking cabals that control the country and global economy are a given among conspiracy theorists who stockpile ammo, bottled water and peanut butter. After this week’s congressional hearing into the bailout of American International Group Inc., you have to wonder if those folks are crazy after all.

Wednesday’s hearing described a secretive group deploying billions of dollars to favored banks, operating with little oversight by the public or elected officials.

Gregg Throws A Hissy Fit When Asked To Provide Specifics About Programs He Would Cut

On MSNBC this afternoon, deficit peacock Sen. Judd Gregg (R-NH) got into a heated exchange with anchors Contessa Brewer and Melissa Francis, challenging their “integrity” and calling them “irresponsible” and “duplicitous” after they tried to get him to offer specific ways he would cut spending to lower the deficit.

Asked about the money President Obama is proposing to spend on jobs and whether it should “go hand and hand with other programs that integrate job training, vocational skills and certainly educating very young people,” Gregg responded with his usual complaints about government spending and his desire to “control the rate of growth of government.”

Paul Krugman: March of the Peacocks

Last week, the Center for American Progress, a think tank with close ties to the Obama administration, published an acerbic essay about the difference between true deficit hawks and showy “deficit peacocks.” You can identify deficit peacocks, readers were told, by the way they pretend that our budget problems can be solved with gimmicks like a temporary freeze in nondefense discretionary spending.

One week later, in the State of the Union address, President Obama proposed a temporary freeze in nondefense discretionary spending.

Wait, it gets worse. To justify the freeze, Mr. Obama used language that was almost identical to widely ridiculed remarks early last year by John Boehner, the House minority leader. Boehner then: “American families are tightening their belt, but they don’t see government tightening its belt.” Obama now: “Families across the country are tightening their belts and making tough decisions. The federal government should do the same.”

Scott Roeder found guilty of first-degree murder in Tiller killing

By Judy L. Thomas | Kansas City Star

WICHITA, Kan. — After 37 minutes of deliberation, a jury today found Scott Roeder guilty of first-degree murder in the shooting death of Wichita abortion doctor George Tiller.

Jurors also convicted Roeder of two counts of aggravated assault for threatening two men who chased him as he fled Tiller’s church after the shooting.

Sedgwick County District Judge Warren Wilbert set Roeder’s sentencing for March 9. Roeder faces a maximum sentence of life in prison.

Accused Louisiana Co-Conspirator Helped Run Academic Program Funded by U.S. Intelligence

Mark Hosenball

One of four men arrested on Tuesday for attempting to interfere with the telephones at the New Orleans office of Sen. Mary Landrieu previously worked for a U.S. intelligence-funded program to train would-be American spies, Declassified has learned.

Between August 2007 and October 2008, Stanley Dai served as assistant director of a program called the Intelligence Community Center of Academic Excellence at Trinity Washington University, a small Catholic college in Washington D.C., according to a school official. The official, university vice president Ann Pauley, said that the program was completely funded by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. She said the purpose of the program was to expose both undergraduates and graduate students at the university to the work of the intelligence community and to prepare them for possible careers in intelligence. As a result of the program, Pauley said, the university established a master's degree program in intelligence and security studies. She added that the government grant funding the program ended in 2008.

How Members of Congress Are Advancing Anti-Muslim Hysteria to Push a Radical Legal Agenda

Islamophobes in Congress like Joe Lieberman are trying to set the U.S. on a path to establish a different set of legal standards for Muslims.

January 28, 2010

Roughly one month after the massacre at Fort Hood and a little over a week after Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab (the "underwear bomber") tried to blow himself up over the city of Detroit, one of the most conservative Republicans in the Congress, South Carolina Representative Gresham Barrett, re-introduced a sweeping piece of legislation that he first rolled out in 2003 as a freshman on Capitol Hill.

The Stop Terrorists Entry Program (STEP) Act was originally introduced on September 11 (naturally), 2003 "to bar the admission of aliens from countries determined to be state sponsors of terrorism, and for other purposes." At the time, these countries included Iran, Libya, Syria, North Korea, Iraq and Cuba. The bill not only sought to bar presumed enemies of the state from entering the U.S., it also would have forced "nonimmigrant aliens" -- visitors with a temporary visa -- to leave the country, within 60 days of its passage.

Elizabeth Warren on the Great Economic Battlefield: Protecting the Middle Class from Financial Predators

A new Consumer Financial Protection Agency can save the middle class. Elizabeth Warren explains how.

January 28, 2010

For years, federal banking regulators at the Office of Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), the Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS) and the Federal Reserve helped the nation's largest banks wage war on the U.S. middle class. But President Barack Obama wants to change all that with a new regulator that answers exclusively to consumers, not bank balance sheets. AlterNet economics editor Zach Carter discussed the proposal to establish a Consumer Financial Protection Agency (CFPA) with the woman who came up with the idea, Harvard University Law School Professor Elizabeth Warren. After defending the American middle class for decades, Warren currently chairs the Congressional Oversight Panel for the Troubled Asset Relief Program.

The Big Theories Underwriting Society Are Crashing All Around Us -- Are You Ready for a New World?

The ideas and institutions that define our culture are breaking down -- and that's a good thing, say authors Bruce Lipton and Steve Bhaerman.

January 27, 2010

Economic meltdown ... environmental crises ... seemingly endless warfare. The world is in critical condition. Bad news? Good news? Or both?

Many of the ideas and institutions that define our culture are breaking down -- and that's a good thing, say Bruce Lipton and Steve Bhaerman. In their new book, Spontaneous Evolution: Our Positive Future and a Way to Get There from Here, they write that today's crises are part of a natural process -- clearing out what no longer serves us to make room for a new way of being. Are they cockeyed optimists or do they see things others miss?

Volcker - time for real change

By Henry CK Liu

United States President Barack Obama announced on January 21 that he had accepted the advice of two prominent Republican big names in finance in an apparent renewed effort to appeal for bipartisan support. The move came two days after the Democrats' disastrous election loss, to a mostly unknown Republican candidate, of a senate seat long held by the late Edward Kennedy and critical for maintaining a filibuster-proof majority.

The president told the nation on television: "I just had a very productive meeting with two members of my Economic Recovery Advisory Board: Paul Volcker, who's the former chair of the Federal Reserve Board; and Bill Donaldson, previously the head of the SEC [Securities and Exchange Commission]. And I deeply appreciate the counsel of these two leaders and the board that they've offered as we have dealt with a broad array of very difficult economic challenges."

Don't Waste the Crisis!

Six strategies that could save Obama's ambitious reform agenda.

By Eliot SpitzerPosted Monday, Jan. 25, 2010, at 3:31 PM ET

As he prepares for a difficult State of the Union address, President Obama should take small solace in the oft-quoted and accurate observation of his predecessor Theodore Roosevelt that "[i]t is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles. … The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes [up] short again and again … but who does actually strive to do the deeds."

President Obama is in the arena, one that may now feel like the Roman Colosseum, surrounded if not by lions then by second guessers, wavering allies, and gloating Republicans. Dire as things may seem, he should recall that poll numbers are like bungee jumps—the public mood will swing wildly and rapidly, often for reasons that do not fit into the rational and fact-based world with which Obama seems most comfortable.

American opinion cools on global warming

New Haven, Conn.--Public concern about global warming has dropped sharply since the fall of 2008, according to a national survey released today by researchers at Yale and George Mason universities.

The survey found: Only 50 percent of Americans now say they are "somewhat" or "very worried" about global warming, a 13-point decrease.

The percentage of Americans who think global warming is happening has declined 14 points, to 57 percent.

Thomas Frank: Centrism Died in Massachusetts

The surprising results of last week's special Senate election in Massachusetts have exposed all manner of Beltway shortcomings, but none so forcefully as the terminal exhaustion of the professional pundit corps.

Consider the wretchedness of the advice presently coming in from all quarters of the Washington establishment. It might be summed up as follows: The Democratic candidate for Ted Kennedy's old seat was beaten by a Republican, Scott Brown. Only one conclusion can be drawn from this, apparently: that the public has gone decisively to the right. Ergo, so must the president. Barack Obama must capture the center, even if it means leaving his party behind. He must do as Bill Clinton did. When faced with opposition, capitulate! When that opposition grows, cave faster!

The president needs to pick a fight with members of his own party in Congress, the Sunday talk show sinecurists have murmured. That will surely help matters. He must embrace a sort of transcendent bipartisanship, suggests Fareed Zakaria in the Washington Post. He needs to learn, like the New York Times's David Brooks believes our ancestors did, to "tolerate the excesses of traders" because that's the only way to have "vigorous financial markets." Thomas Friedman, a man as consistent as he is banal, opines that the way to turn things around is by . . . embracing entrepreneurship.

Presidential Assassinations of US Citizens

by Glenn Greenwald

The Washington Post's Dana Priest today reports [1] that "U.S. military teams and intelligence agencies are deeply involved in secret joint operations with Yemeni troops who in the past six weeks have killed scores of people." That's no surprise, of course, as Yemen is now another predominantly Muslim country (along with Somalia and Pakistan) in which our military is secretly involved to some unknown degree in combat operations without any declaration of war, without any public debate, and arguably (though not clearly [2]) without any Congressional authorization. The exact role played by the U.S. in the late-December missile attacks in Yemen, which killed numerous civilians, is still unknown.

Coal Ash Industry Allowed To Edit EPA Reports

— Reports to Congress, Brochures, “Fact Sheets” Tailored to Allay Industry Concerns

Washington, DC — For years U.S. Environmental Protection Agency publications and reports about uses and dangers of coal combustion waste have been edited by coal ash industry representatives, according to EPA documents released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). Not surprisingly, the coal ash industry watered down official reports, brochures and fact-sheets to remove references to potential dangers and play up “environmental benefits” of a wide range of applications for coal combustion wastes – the same materials that EPA is currently deciding whether to classify as hazardous wastes following the disastrous December 2008 coal ash spill in Tennessee.

Davos 2010: Soros calls for break-up of big banks

By Tim Weber
Business editor, BBC News website, in Davos

Legendary investor George Soros has called for a radical break-up of banks that are "too big to fail".

He also backed US President Barack Obama's proposed reforms to limit the size of banks at the World Economic Forum in Davos.

Speaking at a private lunch, Mr Soros told journalists that Wall Street bankers opposing Mr Obama's plans were "tone-deaf".

ACORN Smear Journalist Arrested for Alleged Attempt to Bug Sen. Mary Landrieu's Office

Four young right-wing activists were arrested by Federal marshals for attempting to bug the Louisiana Senator's office.

January 26, 2010 | James O’Keefe, the young right-wing activist who posed as a pimp to “break” the ACORN “scandal,” has been arrested by the FBI, along with three alleged accomplices, for attempting to bug the New Orleans offices of Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA).

According to a federal affidavit, O’Keefe, along with Joseph Basel, Stan Dai and Robert Flanagan, all 24 years of age, entered the federal building on Monday dressed as telephone company repairmen. According to the Times-Picayune, O’Keefe had entered the office and told a staffer that he was waiting for someone else to arrive. The three other men wore “jeans, fluorescent green vests, tool belts, and hard hats.”

Obama and Volcker Must Go After the Big Banks

By Nomi Prins, AlterNet
Posted on January 27, 2010, Printed on January 27, 2010
http://www.alternet.org/story/145437/

Thus far, President Obama’s financial reform strategy has reeked of political expediency—talk tough to Wall Street, act gentle, ride out the populist anti-banker tide, hope for the best, change nothing. But Obama may have awakened to the smell of one-term coffee after last week’s Massachusetts Senate race results. It's certainly heartening to see Obama eschewing the advice of Wall Street-placating Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner for that of the sager, former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker. Nevertheless, demonstrating the serious financial reform behind the political fluff talk will take more than a stint of administrative realignment.

Big bank stocks tanked after Obama rolled out the new Volcker rule, and mainstream media headlines attributed the declines to investor concerns that the crazy days of unregulated bank trading will be coming to an end. But the President's actual proposals were not enough to seriously rattle anyone on Wall Street. If anything, the banks were fretting over the prospect of losing the tag-team of Geithner and Fed Chief Ben Bernanke, whose joint brainpower has showered $6.4 trillion in subsidies upon the industry.

'People's History' author Howard Zinn dies at 87

By HILLEL ITALIE, AP National Writer – 1 min ago

Howard Zinn, an author, teacher and political activist whose leftist "A People's History of the United States" became a million-selling alternative to mainstream texts and a favorite of such celebrities as Bruce Springsteen and Ben Affleck, died Wednesday. He was 87.

Zinn died of a heart attack in Santa Monica, Calif., daughter Myla Kabat-Zinn said. The historian was a resident of Auburndale, Mass.

It only gets worse this year for commercial real estate

By Kevin G. Hall | McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON — Commercial real estate is expected to remain a drag on the U.S. economy through 2010 and beyond.

"You do see stress in the market. We've seen delinquency rates increasing; we've seen by a whole variety of measures increased stress in the commercial real estate market," said Jamie Woodwell, the vice president of commercial real estate research for the Mortgage Bankers Association.

Study documents reaction rates for three chemicals with high global warming potential

Greenhouse gases

A study published this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of SciencesPNAS) provides new information about the rates at which three of the most powerful greenhouse gases are destroyed by a chemical reaction that takes place in the upper atmosphere.

The three compounds are potentially important because they absorb infrared energy in the so-called "atmospheric window" region – at wavelengths where other major greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide allow radiation to pass freely out into space. Though these long-lived compounds now exist in relatively low concentrations, their ability to absorb energy at these wavelengths means their contributions to global warming could increase if their levels continue to rise.

Managing ecosystems in a changing climate

Global warming may impair the ability of ecosystems to perform vital services—such as providing food, clean water and carbon sequestration—says the nation's largest organization of ecological scientists. In a statement released today, the Ecological Society of America (ESA) outlines strategies that focus on restoring and maintaining natural ecosystem functions to mitigate and adapt to climate change.

"Decision-makers cannot overlook the critical services ecosystems provide," says ESA President Mary Power. "If we are going to reduce the possibility of irreversible damage to the environment under climate change, we need to take swift but measured action to protect and manage our ecosystems."

ESA recommends four approaches to limiting adverse effects of climate change through ecosystem management:

Don't Be Stupid with the Economy

by Dean Baker

The US Senate's decision on approving Ben Bernanke [1] for a second term as chair of the Federal Reserve Board is coming down to the wire and the Wall Street crew is once again pulling out all the stops. To get the 60 votes they need for Senate approval they are reaching into the treasure chest of tall tales they used to push through the troubled asset relief programme (Tarp). They are once again telling the American people that the world will end if we don't do exactly what they want.

The main story they are pushing is that if Bernanke is not approved then the markets will panic [2] and send the economy tumbling. Both parts of this story deserve some serious scepticism. First, there undoubtedly will be some uncertainty in the financial markets if Bernanke is not reappointed. Markets like continuity. A new Fed chair means a break in continuity. Therefore, we can expect to see some decline in the stock market, probably about the same as we get when there is a worse-than-expected jobs report.

AIG bail-out investigations launched

The US bail-out watchdog has announced it is launching two investigations into the government's rescue of insurer AIG.

Neil Barofsky, special investigator general for the US's Troubled Asset Relief Program (Tarp), questioned the government's role in the bail-out.

He is appearing before a House Committee looking into the AIG bail-out in 2008 on Wednesday.

Why Progressives Shouldn't Fall For the Deficit Reduction Trap

By James K. Galbraith, AlterNet
Posted on January 26, 2010, Printed on January 26, 2010
http://www.alternet.org/story/145401/

Shockingly, President Obama has announced his support for a commission whose purpose is to ramrod Social Security and Medicare cuts through Congress. Thinly disguised as a program for "deficit reduction," the proposed commission will meet its first test today, when the Senate may vote to authorize it as part of a bill to raise the national debt ceiling. A large progressive coalition is already on record against it. But the progressives' case is flawed; it's not tough enough. Here's why.

Glenn Greenwald: The sanctity of military spending

Administration officials announced last night that the President, in tomorrow's State of the Union address, will propose a multi-year freeze on certain domestic discretionary spending programs. This is an "initiative intended to signal his seriousness about cutting the budget deficit," officials told The New York Times.

But the freeze is more notable for what it excludes than what it includes. For now, it does not include the largest domestic spending programs: Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. And all "security-releated programs" are also exempted from the freeze, which means it does not apply to military spending, the intelligence budget, the Surveillance State, or foreign military aid. As always, the notion of decreasing the deficit and national debt through reductions in military spending is one of the most absolute Washington taboos. What possible rationale is there for that?

Democracy in America Is a Useful Fiction

By Chris Hedges

Corporate forces, long before the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, carried out a coup d’état in slow motion. The coup is over. We lost. The ruling is one more judicial effort to streamline mechanisms for corporate control. It exposes the myth of a functioning democracy and the triumph of corporate power. But it does not significantly alter the political landscape. The corporate state is firmly cemented in place.

The fiction of democracy remains useful, not only for corporations, but for our bankrupt liberal class. If the fiction is seriously challenged, liberals will be forced to consider actual resistance, which will be neither pleasant nor easy. As long as a democratic facade exists, liberals can engage in an empty moral posturing that requires little sacrifice or commitment. They can be the self-appointed scolds of the Democratic Party, acting as if they are part of the debate and feel vindicated by their cries of protest.

Details of Iraq whistleblower’s alleged suicide to be sealed 70 years

By Stephen C. Webster
Sunday, January 24th, 2010 -- 6:19 pm

By 2080, anyone with a direct interest in learning how Dr. David Kelly died, will themselves be dead.

That's how an Oxford coroner reacted to a recent ruling ordering the details of the former United Nations weapons inspector's death locked away for 70 years, according to a Mail Online report.

Paul Krugman: The Bernanke Conundrum

A Republican won in Massachusetts — and suddenly it’s not clear whether the Senate will confirm Ben Bernanke for a second term as Federal Reserve chairman. That’s not as strange as it sounds: Washington has suddenly noticed public rage over economic policies that bailed out big banks but failed to create jobs. And Mr. Bernanke has become a symbol of those policies.

Where do I stand? I deeply admire Mr. Bernanke, both as an economist and for his response to the financial crisis. (Full disclosure: before going to the Fed he headed Princeton’s economics department, and hired me for my current position there.) Yet his critics have a strong case. In the end, I favor his reappointment, but only because rejecting him could make the Fed’s policies worse, not better.

How did we get to the point where that’s the most I can say?

Can Obama Fight?

The president is talking like a populist. But he also needs to punch like one.

— By David Corn

Mon Jan. 25, 2010 2:00 AM PST

Two days after Republican Scott Brown's upset win in Massachusetts, the Obama administration proposed two new measures that would limit the ability of big financial institutions to wheel and deal. In announcing these initiatives—one of which would prevent investment banks from playing the market with their own cash—President Barack Obama got rather feisty:

What we've seen so far, in recent weeks, is an army of industry lobbyists from Wall Street descending on Capitol Hill to try and block basic and common-sense rules of the road that would protect our economy and the American people. So if these folks want a fight, it's a fight I'm ready to have. And my resolve is only strengthened when I see a return to old practices at some of the very firms fighting reform.

Economic growth 'cannot continue'

Continuing global economic growth "is not possible" if nations are to tackle climate change, a report by an environmental think-tank has warned.

The New Economics Foundation (Nef) said "unprecedented and probably impossible" carbon reductions would be needed to hold temperature rises below 2C (3.6F).

Scientists say exceeding this limit could lead to dangerous global warming.

"We urgently need to change our economy to live within its environmental budget," said Nef's policy director.

Andrew Simms added: "There is no global, environmental central bank to bail us out if we become ecologically bankrupt."

None of the existing models or policies could "square the circle" of economic growth with climate safety, Nef added.

Stiglitz pinpoints 'moral' core of crisis

By Henry CK Liu

Nobel Laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz, a Roosevelt Institute senior fellow and its chief economist, said on CNBC on January 19 that the US is infested with "ersatz capitalism", a flawed, unfair system that socializes economic losses and privatizes the gains. He decries the "moral depravity" that has led to the current financial crisis.

Stiglitz served in the Bill Clinton administration as chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers (1995-97) before moving to the World Bank as its chief economist, where he developed a Pauline epiphany against the very neo-liberalism he helped promote in the form of "the Third Way", to criticize belatedly but rightly and vocally policies of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Such outbursts put him in conflict with the Treasury Department under Larry Summers, who reportedly forced Stiglitz to resign (2000), presumably for not being a team player. Notwithstanding his government career setback, Stiglitz was selected as a recipient of the 2001 Nobel Prize for Economics.

NASA's Prophet Will Give You Nightmares

Ignore James Hansen's climate predictions at your peril.

By Johann Hari
Posted Sunday, Jan. 24, 2010, at 6:33 AM ET

I started reading James Hansen's new book, Storms of My Grandchildren, at the edge of a vanishing Arctic. I sat on a bare brown Greenland hillside listening to the ferocious crack and crash of the dying glaciers in the distance. As I watched the corpse of the ice sheet float by, broken into a thousand icebergs, it seemed the right place to begin the leading NASA scientist's explanation for what I was seeing. Since the year I was born, 1979, 40 percent of the Arctic sea ice has vanished. If we don't change our behavior fast, Hansen says I will live to see the day when it is all gone, and the North Pole is a point in the open ocean, reachable by boat. He stresses these are only the starting symptoms of a planetary fever that will remake the map of the world—and the capacity of human beings to survive on it. I finished reading the book at the Copenhagen climate summit, where the world's leaders gathered to offer a giant shrug.

Paul Krugman For The Fed

The case for Ben Bernanke’s reappointment was weak to start with, weakened with his hearings, and is now held together by string and some phone calls from the White House. Bernanke is an airline pilot who pulled off a miraculous landing, but didn’t do his preflight checks and doesn’t show any sign of being more careful in the future – thank him if you want, but why would you fly with him again (or the airline that keeps him on)?

The support for Bernanke in the Senate hangs by a thread – with Harry Reid providing a message of support, albeit lukewarm, after the markets close. The White House is telling people that if Bernanke is not reconfirmed there will be chaos in the markets and the economic recovery will be derailed. This is incorrect.

Frank Rich: After the Massachusetts Massacre

It was not a referendum on Barack Obama, who in every poll remains one of the most popular politicians in America. It was not a rejection of universal health care, which Massachusetts mandated (with Scott Brown’s State Senate vote) in 2006. It was not a harbinger of a resurgent G.O.P., whose numbers remain in the toilet. Brown had the good sense not to identify himself as a Republican in either his campaign advertising or his victory speech.

And yet Tuesday’s special election was a dire omen for this White House. If the administration sticks to this trajectory, all bets are off for the political future of a president who rode into office blessed with more high hopes, good will and serious promise than any in modern memory. It’s time for him to stop deluding himself. Yes, last week’s political obituaries were ludicrously premature. Obama’s 50-ish percent first-anniversary approval rating matches not just Carter’s but Reagan’s. (Bushes 41 and 43 both skyrocketed in Year One.) Still, minor adjustments can’t right what’s wrong.

To Haiti with hate, from the US right

Andrew Stephen
Published 21 January 2010

The attacks on Haiti by the religious far right can be traced back to the US occupation of the country

Let's stop all this nonsense about the suffering people of Haiti. Listen to what Rush Limbaugh, king of the far-right radio airwaves here, says we should all do: nothing. "We've already donated to Haiti," Limbaugh lectured a caller on his daily show, which is broadcast by 645 radio stations throughout the US and earns him $35m a year. "It's called the US income tax."

From the pulpit of the religious far right, 79-year-old Pat Robertson, a semi-serious presidential contender in 1988, chimed in with his own unique wisdom, telling us that the Haitians had got what they deserved because they had made "a pact to the devil".

Seven things about the economy that everyone should be more worried about than they are

COMMENTARY | January 22, 2010

Dan Froomkin explores the likelihood of an anemic recovery, a double dip recession, another stock market crash, more financial-sector follies, deficit hawks stifling growth, the death of the middle class as we know it, and/or other dire possibilities reporters should be writing about furiously.

(Part of our series on "Reporting the Economic Collapse")

By Dan Froomkin
froomkin@niemanwatchdog.org

An extraordinary series of articles recently appeared on the Nieman Watchdog Web site, anchored by John Hanrahan and mostly based on interviews with some of the nation's most perceptive, prescient and prophetic economists. The series laid out a broad landscape of economic issues that have been largely overlooked during the reporting of the nation’s economic collapse -- to our great peril.

Hanrahan’s articles explore key elements of the story that reporters should have been -- and should still be -- writing about. Among them: The endemic fraud at the heart of the collapse, the resultant need for a comprehensive dissection of some key financial institutions, how the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have weakened the economy, the dramatic effects of the crash on domestic poverty and world poverty, and underlying it all, the critically important role of government spending in a recovery, be it through a second stimulus or expanded entitlements or jobs programs, all of which requires that deficits be seen, for the short run at least, as the solution, not the problem.

Hatch Admits Hypocrisy: ‘A Lot Of Things Weren’t Paid For’ When Republicans Ran Congress During Bush Years

In 2003, when the Bush administration was already projecting a budget deficit of $475 billion in fiscal year 2004, the Republican-controlled Congress passed a Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit that raised the deficit by $395 billion between 2004 and 2013. Despite enacting a massive, unpaid for entitlement expansion while in power, Republicans have attacked the cost of health care reform sought by President Obama and Democrats in Congress — even though the bill with the best chance of passage would reduce the deficit by $132 billion over 10 years and by $1.3 trillion over 20 years.

They Still Don’t Get It

By BOB HERBERT

Published: January 22, 2010

How loud do the alarms have to get? There is an economic emergency in the country with millions upon millions of Americans riddled with fear and anxiety as they struggle with long-term joblessness, home foreclosures, personal bankruptcies and dwindling opportunities for themselves and their children.

The door is being slammed on the American dream and the politicians, including the president and his Democratic allies on Capitol Hill, seem not just helpless to deal with the crisis, but completely out of touch with the hardships that have fallen on so many.