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By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: November 12, 2009
Consider, for a moment, a tale of two countries. Both have suffered a severe recession and lost jobs as a result — but not on the same scale. In Country A, employment has fallen more than 5 percent, and the unemployment rate has more than doubled. In Country B, employment has fallen only half a percent, and unemployment is only slightly higher than it was before the crisis.
Don’t you think Country A might have something to learn from Country B?
This story isn’t hypothetical. Country A is the United States, where stocks are up, G.D.P. is rising, but the terrible employment situation just keeps getting worse. Country B is Germany, which took a hit to its G.D.P. when world trade collapsed, but has been remarkably successful at avoiding mass job losses. Germany’s jobs miracle hasn’t received much attention in this country — but it’s real, it’s striking, and it raises serious questions about whether the U.S. government is doing the right things to fight unemployment.
Here in America, the philosophy behind jobs policy can be summarized as “if you grow it, they will come.” That is, we don’t really have a jobs policy: we have a G.D.P. policy. The theory is that by stimulating overall spending we can make G.D.P. grow faster, and this will induce companies to stop firing and resume hiring.
The alternative would be policies that address the job issue more directly. We could, for example, have New-Deal-style employment programs. Perhaps such a thing is politically impossible now — Glenn Beck would describe anything like the Works Progress Administration as a plan to recruit pro-Obama brownshirts — but we should note, for the record, that at their peak, the W.P.A. and the Civilian Conservation Corps employed millions of Americans, at relatively low cost to the budget.
Alternatively, or in addition, we could have policies that support private-sector employment. Such policies could range from labor rules that discourage firing to financial incentives for companies that either add workers or reduce hours to avoid layoffs.
And that’s what the Germans have done. Germany came into the Great Recession with strong employment protection legislation. This has been supplemented with a “short-time work scheme,” which provides subsidies to employers who reduce workers’ hours rather than laying them off. These measures didn’t prevent a nasty recession, but Germany got through the recession with remarkably few job losses.
Should America be trying anything along these lines? In a recent interview, Lawrence Summers, the Obama administration’s highest-ranking economist, was dismissive: “It may be desirable to have a given amount of work shared among more people. But that’s not as desirable as expanding the total amount of work.” True. But we are not, in fact, expanding the total amount of work — and Congress doesn’t seem willing to spend enough on stimulus to change that unfortunate fact. So shouldn’t we be considering other measures, if only as a stopgap?
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/13/opinion/13kru...
Besides, we're AMURKA(tm). We don't need to follow nobody else or listen to nobody else! We are the best, the brightest, the most high and we're not gonna follow after anybody else!
"That is, we don’t really have a jobs policy: we have a G.D.P. policy. The theory is that by stimulating overall spending we can make G.D.P. grow faster, and this will induce companies to stop firing and resume hiring."
White House Counsel: Craig Out, Bauer In
Sources in government say that White House Counsel Gregory Craig has decided to resign, and that the president's personal lawyer, Robert Bauer, will take his place. A formal announcement is slated for next week, though word might drop Friday. The official changeover won't happen until next year.
The move has been in the works for more than a month, the decision to move on was mutual, and the announcement was delayed while the White House waited out a spate of negative press stories about Craig.
Craig is highly regarded by his colleagues for having a top-flight legal and tactical mind. And he is a veteran of the White House, having served as chief counsel to President Clinton during impeachment. He spent decades in private practice, had five years experience as chief national security counsel to Ted Kennedy and served on Madeleine Albright's policy planning staff at the State Department.
Presiding over the largest White House counsel's office in recent memory, Craig has, according to even his allies, not displayed the best managerial skills. Even a job like the counsel becomes an inherently political position, and requires its occupant to have a broad understanding of how to engage stakeholders across the government. Craig was seen by some of his detractors as too inwardly focused. None of these demerits are firing offenses.
But the perception that Craig was not successful -- a false perception, according to his colleagues -- may have brought about a reality that made it hard for Craig to do his job. Press reports that the President blamed Craig for forcing his hand on the closure of Guantanamo Bay are incorrect; Craig, in the president's view, has done yeoman's work and is responsible for helping to clean up an unprecedented legal, political, and moral mess left by the last administration.
But part of why Gitmo won't be closed in January is because Craig could not -- or would not - crack skulls in the interagency process. It took the wily lawyering of Alberto Gonzales and David Addington to get Gitmo open, and it's going to take some of their skills -- wills of steel, political savvy, institutional savvy -- to get the thing closed.
Bauer is Chair of the Political Law Group of Perkins Coie LLP. He served as the Obama campaign's general counsel and became the President's private lawyer after the election. He is married to Anita Dunn, Obama's outgoing -- and exiting -- communications director. He has 30 years of experience in political, ethics and campaign law, and is perhaps the only senior White House official to have written his own blog -- Soft Money Hard Law -- which chronicles campaign and election law disputes.
http://politics.theatlantic.com/2009/11/white_h...
.....................................
will only point out that the whole premise of Anita Dunn being' thrown under the bus' doesn't really work if the woman's HUSBAND is about to go to the White House. And, considering the demands of a job in the White House, that basically would have left their child to raise himself, if BOTH his parents were working in the White House.
Obama, Deficit Hawk
OBAMA09MarkWilson:Getty
For much of this year, I've been arguing that the Obama administration needs to pivot swiftly from health insurance reform to fiscal responsibility in the coming months. The recession made deficit cutting in the here and now imprudent in his first year; but now addressing the long-term debt is itself necessary for stabilizing the economy - and reassuring independent voters that he, unlike his predecessor, gives a damn about fiscal health. Well: the good news is that he's going to do exactly that:
.................................................
President Barack Obama plans to announce in next year's State of the Union address that he wants to focus extensively on cutting the federal deficit in 2010 – and will downplay other new domestic spending beyond jobs programs, according to top aides involved in the planning. The president's plan, which the officials said was under discussion before this month’s Democratic election setbacks, represents both a practical and a political calculation by this White House. On the practical side, Obama has spent more money on new programs in nine months than Bill Clinton did in eight years, pushing the annual deficit to $1.4 trillion. This leaves little room for big spending initiatives. On the political side, Obama can help moderate Democrats avoid some tough votes in an election year and, perhaps more importantly, calm the nerves of independent voters who are voicing big concerns with the big spending and deficits.
..................................
This classic Politico piece - in as much as it regurgitates almost comically process-oriented Beltway wisdom - fails to mention a few things about Obama's spending in his first year.
Item one: the recession.
To treat the stimulus package as if it were something he just felt like doing - because he's a big government maniac - is a lie, a piece of propaganda that has seeped into the lazy Beltway desire to describe everything - even now - into the big government/small government, red-blue paradigm.
Item two: The health insurance reform almost painfully tries to pay for itself - something that Bush's Medicare entitlement didn't even pretend to do.
Item three: there's a big big difference between spending on green and infrastructure investment and slashing taxes or increasing Medicare entitlements.
The way in which cynical and amnesiac Republicans have tried to portray this as classic big government liberalism is a lie. You can debate the merits of each initiative, but this is obviously not an administration as fiscally reckless as the last one. Mercifully, they have a chance to show it in earnest next year. And to call the bluff of those Republicans yelling about spending while having absolutely no plans or ideas for cutting it.
http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily...
"On the practical side, Obama has spent more money on new programs in nine months than Bill Clinton did in eight years, pushing the annual deficit to $1.4 trillion."
Why no comparison of "new programs" to W? To Bush senior? Why is the invasion of Iraq not equivalent to a "new program" in the context of the budget? What a bunch of hacks.
We Have A President
The news that Obama has refused to sign off on any of the four major options presented to him in Afghanistan reminds me of why he was elected president. This critical decision - arguably the most critical of his young presidency - is one that will not be rushed the way such decisions often are. His insistence that the civilian branch truly control policy there and that empire not be passively accepted as a fait accompli are real signs of strength in the struggle to recalibrate American foreign policy. Can you imagine Bush ever holding out like this on the military? Or for these reasons:
Administration officials said Wednesday that Obama wants to make it clear that the U.S. commitment in Afghanistan is not open-ended.
The stunning honesty of Eikenberry has undoubtedly concentrated minds on the core pillar of any counter-insurgency strategy: the Karzai government. But, of course, no options have been closed off yet:
The White House says Obama has not made a final choice, though military and other officials have said he appears near to approving a slightly smaller increase than McChrystal wants at the outset.
Among the options for Obama would be ways to phase in additional troops, perhaps eventually equaling McChrystal's full request, based on security or other conditions in Afghanistan and in response to pending decisions on troops levels by some U.S. allies fighting in Afghanistan.
What we are seeing here, I suspect, is what we see everywhere with Obama: a relentless empiricism in pursuit of a particular objective and a willingness to let the process take its time. The very process itself can reveal - not just to Obama, but to everyone - what exactly the precise options are. Instead of engaging in adolescent tests of whether a president is "tough" or "weak", we actually have an adult prepared to allow the various choices in front of us be fully explored. He is, moreover, not taking the decision process outside the public arena. He is allowing it to unfold within the public arena. Others, moreover, are allowed to take the lead: McChrystal, or Netanyahu, or Pelosi, in the case of Af-Pak, Israel-Palestine and health insurance, respectively. Obama encourages the process but hangs back, broadly - and persistently - pursuing certain objectives without tipping his hand on specifics or timing.
http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily...
By SABRINA TAVERNISE
Published: November 12, 2009
JURM, Afghanistan — Small grants given directly to villagers have brought about modest but important changes in this corner of Afghanistan, offering a model in a country where official corruption and a Taliban insurgency have frustrated many large-scale development efforts.
Since arriving in Afghanistan in 2001, the United States and its Western allies have spent billions of dollars on development projects, but to less effect and popular support than many had hoped for.
Much of that money was funneled through the central government, which has been increasingly criticized as incompetent and corrupt. Even more has gone to private contractors hired by the United States who siphon off almost half of every dollar to pay the salaries of expatriate workers and other overhead costs.
Not so here in Jurm, a valley in the windswept mountainous province of Badakhshan, in the northeast. People here have taken charge for themselves — using village councils and direct grants as part of an initiative called the National Solidarity Program, introduced by an Afghan ministry in 2003.
Before then, this valley had no electricity or clean water, its main crop was poppy and nearly one in 10 women died in childbirth, one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the world.
Today, many people have water taps, fields grow wheat and it is no longer considered shameful for a woman to go to a doctor.
If there are lessons to be drawn from the still tentative successes here, they are that small projects often work best, that the consent and participation of local people are essential and that even baby steps take years.
The issues are not academic. Bringing development to Afghans is an important part of a counterinsurgency strategy aimed at drawing people away from the Taliban and building popular support for the Western-backed government by showing that it can make a difference in people’s lives.
“We ignored the people in districts and villages,” said Jelani Popal, who runs a state agency that appoints governors. “This caused a lot of indifference. ‘Why should I side with the government if it doesn’t even exist in my life?’ ”
Jurm was tormented by warlords in the 1990s, and though it never fell to the Taliban, the presence of the central government, even today, is barely felt. The idea to change that was simple: people elected the most trusted villagers, and the government in Kabul, helped by foreign donors, gave them direct grants — money to build things like water systems and girls’ schools for themselves.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/13/world/asia/13...
The goal now is not about "winning a war". We won the war; the Taliban are out of power and bin Laden is on the run. And now that we are in the phase of rebuilding to keep the peace we have to start by educating ourselves about the key characteristics in the tribal cultures of Afghanistan. A micro approach is required at local levels because each local tribal unit has its own way of doing things. "National security" doesn't mean a thing for many regions of Afghanistan and imposing an American way of thinking on the challenges there is a disaster.
And there is another assumption that lurks too often in the "justifications" for why our troops need to be there. Sometimes one gets a whif of "they can't do anything on their own." Well many of the "helpless and hopeless" Afghans can do fine with a little direct support and just "get the hell out of the way". I love the concluding paragraph:
~~~~~~~~
Jurm was tormented by warlords in the 1990s, and though it never fell to the Taliban, the presence of the central government, even today, is barely felt. The idea to change that was simple: people elected the most trusted villagers, and the government in Kabul, helped by foreign donors, gave them direct grants — money to build things like water systems and girls’ schools for themselves.
~~~~~~~~~
FWIW, after reading in Sept. about the goals Obama has for this region, I wasn't surprised that he rejected miltiary Afghanistan plans. He is focused on the political goals. He understands that unless the military plans connect with those, they aren't addressing the situation.
In a piece published today in the Wall Street Journal, Ashby Jones, lead writer for the WSJ's Law Blog, considers this question. It is actively under consideration in Pennsylvania, where two judges of the Court of Common Pleas were accused of routing juveniles to detention centers in exchange for millions of dollars in kickbacks. (For more background on the story, see complete coverage of the affair from The Legal Intelligencer.)
In civil suits filed against the judges, lawyers are seeking to recover monetary damages on behalf of the children and their families, alleging that the judges violated their civil rights. The judges countered with motions to dismiss the lawsuits, arguing that they are protected by the doctrine of judicial immunity. Their motions are pending.
"Legal experts say the plaintiffs face an uphill battle in piercing the immunity shield," Jones writes. "Dating to 1872, the U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly supported the notion that judges should express their legal convictions without having to worry about personal consequences."
As a matter of policy, it makes sense to immunize judges in all their judicial functions, even when a judge acts with malicious intent, University of Pittsburgh law professor Arthur Hellman tells Jones. "On one level, it seems outrageous to ban someone from suing a corrupt judge," he says. "But if you allow plaintiffs to pierce the immunity by alleging bad motive, it opens the floodgates."
Has Judicial Immunity Lost its Appeal?
Last week, prosecutors were making arguments before SC its not unconstitutional for them to frame us.
Do we know what kind of brief the JUSTICE DEPARTMENT sent in about the Supreme Court Case?
“I can assure you that the Chairman takes this issue very seriously,” writes McKay.
RNC Planning Immediate Review of Its Abortion Coverage
Said Gates: "I have been appalled by the amount of leaking that has been going on in this process... And frankly if I found out with high confidence anybody who was leaking in the Department of Defense, who that was, that would probably be a career-ender."
Gates Threatens to Fire Leakers
[...]
Flash forward to 2009, and Afghanistan is ruled by Popal's cousin, President Hamid Karzai. Popal has cut his huge beard down to a neatly trimmed one and has become an immensely wealthy businessman, along with his brother Rashid Popal, who pleaded guilty to a heroin charge in 1996 in Brooklyn in a separate case.
The Popal brothers control the huge Watan Group in Afghanistan, a consortium engaged in telecommunications, logistics and, most important, security. Watan Risk Management, the Popals' private military arm, is one of the few dozen private security companies in Afghanistan [its senior personnel are ex-British army, many of them from Special Services]. One of Watan's enterprises, key to the war effort, is protecting convoys of Afghan trucks heading from Kabul to Kandahar, carrying American supplies.
Welcome to the wartime contracting bazaar in Afghanistan. It is a virtual carnival of improbable characters and shady connections, with former CIA officials and ex–military officers joining hands with former Taliban and mujahideen to collect US government funds in the name of the war effort.
How the US army protects its trucks – by paying the Taliban
Paying all of these "middlemen", is this why 'we' get costs like $400 gal for gasoline or $1M per soldier deployed?
After three weeks behind bars, the former top cop walked out of jail and headed to the New Jersey mansion where he'll be under house arrest until his Feb. 18 sentencing.
[...]
Robinson tossed Kerik into jail Oct. 20 after prosecutors accused him of leaking sealed documents in an effort to taint the jury ahead of a corruption trial.
[...]
Once considered a hero of 9/11 and a contender to lead Homeland Security, Kerik is the first New York City police commissioner to admit to a crime.
Last week, he admitted hiding $255,000 in freebie renovations from the Internal Revenue Service and lying to the White House.
Prosecutors dropped corruption and fraud charges and agreed not to prosecute Kerik for an alleged scheme with former Westchester County district attorney Jeanine Pirro to illegally tape her husband.
Prosecutors have recommended a sentence of 27 to 33 months in prison, but the judge could technically give him anything up to 61 years.
Judge sets former NYPD commissioner Bernie Kerik free for the holidays
William Jefferson $90K = 27 years, Former B'ham Mayor Larry Langford clothes and rolex valued $200K = 800 years.
From my vantage point, I view "ethical" lobbyist spending and lobbyists in general with the same disdain. AFAIC, using money to influence for self-interest, ethical or not, the results are same.
Is anyone from JP Morgan facing jail time?
Donnie McClurkin Calls Gays "Vampires", Rants Against Tonex and Gay Youth at COGIC
Donnie McClurkin ramps up the ridiculous to speak in tongues and call gays "vampires". The infamously "ex-gay"—or should we say merely "re-closeted"—Grammy Award winning gospel singer and evangelist rants against gays, gay youth and recently out gospel singer Tonex at the Church of God in Christ's Holy Convocation Youth Service. This happened last Saturday at the COGIC convention in Memphis.
In the first of three disgusting YouTube videos, McClurkin begins his rant against Tonex, the gospel star who recently confirmed his long-rumored sexuality. McClurkin says Tonex is a "perversion" and must pray away the gay: "God did not call young people to such peversion. Society has failed him, his church has failed him ... I would be homosexual to this day if Jesus hadn't delivered."
McClurkin also rails against openly gay youth as "broken and feminine": "I see feminine men, feminine boys, everywhere I go ... No, don't applaud 'cuz it ain't funny. It's because we failed. I see them everywhere."
Quite rich coming from McClurkin. If anyone has seen him or the young men in his inner circle, well, let's say the observation about "feminine men everywhere" is spot-on.
In the second video, McClurkin turns his hate toward young lesbians: "These young girls are just as bad as the boys in homosexuality, you don't see it. They can hide ... but there are some evil young hard butch girls."
McClurkin's appearance at the COGIC youth conference is ironic. The rabidly anti-gay Church of God in Christ is well-known for attracting many closeted black gay men. COGIC is also embroiled in numerous lawsuits, criminal investigations and internal church investigations around clergy sexual abuse—there is a micro-site on the Church website. ReportCOGICAbuse and Gay Christian Movement Watch, websites created by alleged "ex-gay" Atlanta-based "DL" Foster (How you doin' DL!), chronicles COGIC sexual abuses.One church reportedly has four convicted pedophiles on its payroll. A COGIC deacon in Milwaukee was caught exposing himself in a gay cruising park. Foster applauds McClurkin's anti-gay rant. Birds of a feather....
McClurkin recently suggested he still had gay sexual urges and compared homosexuality to diabetes: "I don’t eat sugar, but it doesn’t mean that I don’t want sugar." You are what you eat, Donnie.
http://rodonline.typepad.com/rodonline/2009/11/...
Lord just leave folks alone Donnie! Such bitterness!
DAMN,DAMN,DAMN!....Rikyrah :-)
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In Tokyo, Obama Makes Concession on Marine Base
By HELENE COOPER and MARTIN FACKLER
Published: November 13, 2009
TOKYO — President Obama, seeking to mend fences with America’s most important Asian ally, agreed on Friday to reopen talks on the contentious issue of the relocation of an American Marine base in Okinawa.
The decision to establish what Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama described as a high-level working group represents a concession for the Obama administration, less than a month after Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates appeared to have shut the door on reopening the issue, which was agreed to in 2006.
The two appeared at a joint press conference just a few hours after Mr. Obama touched down in Tokyo to begin his first presidential trip to Asia.
During their first meeting, Mr. Hatoyama offered Mr. Obama condolences for the shooting rampage at Fort Hood, Texas. Afterward, Mr. Hatoyama described the meeting as a success. “We’ve come to call each other Barack and Yukio, and gotten quite accustomed to calling each other by our names,” he said.
Both leaders said their talks had covered issues including the war in Afghanistan, nuclear non-proliferation and climate change.
Mr. Obama will spend the next week trying to convince Asian leaders that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have not completely distracted the United States from Asia.
But in Japan, Mr. Obama will have a lot of convincing to do. American relations with Japan are at their most contentious since the trade wars of the 1990s. Japan’s newly elected Democratic Party has been blunt about seeking a more “equal” relationship with the United States, and Japanese officials say they now intend to focus more on cementing their relationships with other Asian nations.
The Japanese government has said that the country intends to withdraw from an eight-year-old mission in the Indian Ocean to refuel warships supporting American military efforts in Afghanistan. And Japan also plans to revisit a 2006 agreement to relocate a Marine airfield in Okinawa to a less populated part of the island, and to move thousands of Marines from Okinawa to Guam.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/14/world/asia/14...
Chapter 2: Why Conservatism and the Tea Party is Good for Real Americans.
Chapter 3: John McCain is an old Geezer who wouldn't let me be great.
Chapter 4: Levi is a punk ass mofo and I wish I could take a trip to Cougartown with him.
Chapter 5: Why I'm running for Prezident.
"I love you, Levi, also, also, ALSO!"
So much for an "open" administration. Same old.
Today, I was in one of the bookstores that I think she is doing a signing at, and I'm pretty sure that I overheard a clerk tell someone who asked that in order to be allowed at the signing you have to pre-order the book and get a wristband.
Once you take out all the verbal pauses and 'also's, what's left?
ANSWER: EXACTLY what HER BRAIN(?) is made of, - - - -- -
NUTTIN' HONEY!! :>)
APOLOGIES 2 the BEE!! :>) :>)
London. Ms. Kelo was the losing plaintiff in a 5-to-4 Supreme Court decision.
By PATRICK McGEEHAN
Published: November 12, 2009
From the edge of the Thames River in New London, Conn., Michael Cristofaro surveyed the empty acres where his parents’ neighborhood had stood, before it became the crux of an epic battle over eminent domain.
“Look what they did,” Mr. Cristofaro said on Thursday. “They stole our home for economic development. It was all for Pfizer, and now they get up and walk away.”
That sentiment has been echoing around New London since Monday, when Pfizer, the giant drug company, announced it would leave the city just eight years after its arrival led to a debate about urban redevelopment that rumbled through the United States Supreme Court, and reset the boundaries for governments to seize private land for commercial use.
Pfizer said it would pull 1,400 jobs out of New London within two years and move most of them a few miles away to a campus it owns in Groton, Conn., as a cost-cutting measure. It would leave behind the city’s biggest office complex and an adjacent swath of barren land that was cleared of dozens of homes to make room for a hotel, stores and condominiums that were never built.
The announcement stirred up resentment and bitterness among some local residents. They see Pfizer as a corporate carpetbagger that took public money, in the form of big tax breaks, and now wants to run.
“I’m not surprised that they’re gone,” said Susette Kelo, who moved to Groton from New London after the city took her home near Pfizer’s property. “They didn’t get what they wanted: their development, their big plan.”
Ms. Kelo lived in a small pink house in the Fort Trumbull section that was square in the sights of city and state officials who wanted to revitalize the area. The city had created the New London Development Corporation to buy up the nine-acre neighborhood and find a developer to replace it with an “urban village” that would draw shoppers and tourists to the area.
Economic development officials in Connecticut used that plan — and a package of financial incentives — to lure Pfizer to build a headquarters for its research division on 26 acres nearby. With an agreement that it would pay just one-fifth of its property taxes for the first 10 years, Pfizer spent $294 million on a 750,000-square-foot complex that opened in 2001.
By then, Ms. Kelo, the Cristofaros and several neighbors had sued the city to stop it from using its power of eminent domain to take their property. The lawsuit, Kelo v. New London, wound up at the Supreme Court in 2005 as one of the most scrutinized property-rights cases in years.
In a 5-to-4 decision, the high court ruled that it was permissible to take private property and turn it over to developers as part of a plan to bolster the local economy. Conservative justices, including Clarence Thomas, dissented. Justice Thomas called New London’s plan “a costly urban-renewal project whose stated purpose is a vague promise of new jobs and increased tax revenue, but which is also suspiciously agreeable to the Pfizer Corporation.”
The decision was widely criticized, and spurred lawmakers across the country to adopt statutes to prevent similar uses of eminent domain. Scott G. Bullock, senior attorney at the Institute for Justice, a libertarian group in Arlington, Va., said that 43 states had moved to protect private-property rights since the Kelo decision. New York and New Jersey are among the seven that have not, he said.
Mr. Bullock, who represented the landowners in New London, said Pfizer’s announcement “really shows the folly of these plans that use massive corporate welfare and abuse eminent domain for private development.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/13/nyregion/13pf...
"Pfizer will discontinue R&D operations in Princeton, New Jersey; Chazy, Rouses Point and Plattsburgh, New York; Sanford and Research Triangle Park, North Carolina; and Gosport, Slough/Taplow, United Kingdom.
"While these changes are expected to bolster productivity and reduce costs, they will result in staff reductions," Pfizer said in a statement."
"With the proposals he outlined at the White House, the president sought to make good on his campaign promise to end tax breaks “for companies that ship jobs overseas.”
He estimated the changes would raise $210 billion over the next decade and help offset tax cuts for middle-income taxpayers as well as a permanent tax credit for companies’ research and development costs. "
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/05/business/05ta...
Reimer: Learn from America's first couple
Susan Reimer, THE BALTIMORE SUN
Friday, November 13, 2009
When Barack Obama was elected president, some credit was given to what pundits called the Cosby Factor.
The 1980s television show about a black family with a doctor dad and a lawyer mom who were raising a rambunctious brood with a firm but loving hand supposedly made it easier for white America to accept the Obamas, a black family with a lawyer dad and a lawyer mom, raising a couple of rambunctious daughters with a firm but loving hand.
The Cosby Factor thinking went further.
Perhaps the Obamas in the White House would provide the model of traditional, intact family life that is missing in the poorest neighborhoods in this country, where children are most often born to single mothers.
That's a tall order for any couple.
The fact of the Obamas' race, combined with our People-magazine appetite for the smallest detail of celebrity life, has resulted in an almost voyeuristic prying into their marriage that hasn't been seen since Bill admitted that he'd caused pain in his marriage to Hillary.
So it is no surprise that The New York Times would devote almost 8,000 words in its Sunday magazine to "The First Marriage," written by Jodi Kantor.
As it turns out, the Obama marriage might provide more of a road map for the latest generation of two-career marriages than it will for young, poor blacks who don't see much in their neighborhood that looks like a nuclear family.
http://www.statesman.com/opinion/content/editor...
Few eligible for the full 20-week jobless extension
November 5th, 2009, 7:36 am · 80 Comments · posted by Mary Ann Milbourn
(Update 12:43 p.m.: Gather.com reports the House passed the unemployment extension this afternoon on a 403-12 vote. President Barack Obama is set to sign it on Friday, Nov. 6.)
Few, if any, unemployed people will be able to get the full 20-week extension in jobless benefits because Congress delayed so long and failed to change a sunset provision, says a California Employment Development Department official.
As a result, most Californians — an estimated 285,000 long-term unemployed — will be able to qualify for only an additional 14 weeks of benefits, says Loree Levy, an EDD spokeswoman.
The legislation, which was approved by the House today, provides 14 weeks of additional benefits to all states. Those states with a jobless rate over 8.5% — California's is 12.2% — get up to 20 more weeks.
But instead of simply tacking on the additional weeks in one new extension, the bill sets up a Byzantine plan that adds two new extensions to the two previous ones before the last extension, referred to as FedEd, kicks in.
Congress previously extended FedEd from 13 weeks to 20 weeks, but included a sunset provision for the end of the year. If Congress doesn't change that provision, FedEd will revert to 13 weeks on Jan. 1.
So even if a person could start collecting on the latest extension today, the calendar will run out before that person can get all 20 weeks of benefits. As currently written, they will get one additional week for the second extension and, because their unemployment will carry into next year, 13 weeks of FedEd, for a maximum of 14 weeks.
"A lot of false expectations may be created at the end of the year," Levy says.
http://economy.freedomblogging.com/2009/11/05/f...
-----------------------
lowdown, rotten mofos they are.
"The National Retail Federation welcomed today’s passage of legislation that will bring recession-plagued retailers and other businesses more than $10 billion in badly needed cash by lengthening the period during which they can “carry back” current losses to claim a tax refund from previous years when they made a profit.
“This legislation will provide retailers with an important source of capital to finance their operations and keep employees on the payroll,” NRF Vice President and Tax Counsel Rachelle Bernstein said. "
Christina Bellantoni | November 13, 2009, 7:16AM
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who has said he masterminded the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, is being transferred from the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba to New York to face trial.
A Justice Department official confirmed to TPMDC that Mohammed and four other detainees being held at Gitmo will stand trial in a civilian federal court.
Attorney General Eric Holder will make the announcement today, the official told TPMDC.
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/11/khal...
http://epi.3cdn.net/d1219ac2d8a407a2f5_b3m6b5bk...
....
Ten most segregated metropolitan regions
Detroit-Warren-Livonia, Mich,
Milwaukee-Waukesha-West Allis, Wisc
Chicago-Naperville-Joliet, Ill.-Ind.-Wisc
Cleveland-Elyria-Mentor, Ohio
Flint, Mich.
Muskegon-Norton Shores, Mich.
Buffalo-Niagara Falls, N.Y.
Niles-Benton Harbor, Mich
St. Louis, Mo.-Ill
Cincinnati-Middletown, Ohio-Ky.-Ind
Brian Beutler | November 13, 2009, 9:02AM
Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL)--the highest ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee--is unclear about the Constitutionality of current health care legislation, and he's turning for clarity to the Federalist Society.
"I think that's a good question," Sessions said on a panel at the Federalist Society's National Lawyers' Convention. "Matter of fact I met with my staff...we were talking about, and you know what I said Leonard? I said we ought to ask Federalist society folks what they think too. I said let's begin to think about that question and what's the constitutional thing...can the government require to do what we think is in your best interest if you don't think it's in your best interest?"
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), who also sits on the Judiciary Committee, once said there was a bipartisan consensus in favor of individual mandates. But he too seems to have joined the tenther fringe.
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/11/judi...
Sarah Palin "Going Rogue": Takes Aim At McCain Campaign, Steve Schmidt
PASSING up the OTHER CRAP - - -- I found THIS 2 B worthy of comment:
Right away, the phones started ringing. One of the first calls was Schmidt, and the force of his screaming blew my hair back. "How can anyone be so stupid?!
ANSWER: HOW CAN SHE NOT BE??? She's been that way - - ALL HER LIFE!!
WHEW!!! :>)
THEY KNOW!!! :>) :>)
Annnnnnnd, I'm believin' - - - SHE KNOWS!! :>) :>)