Al Qaeda Surges Back Into Iraq, Situation in Syria Not Helping
...Al-Qaida has come roaring back in Iraq since U.S. troops left in late 2011 and now looks stronger than it has in years. The terror group has shown it is capable of carrying out mass-casualty attacks several times a month, driving the death toll in Iraq to the highest level in half a decade. It sees each attack as a way to cultivate an atmosphere of chaos that weakens the Shiite-led government's authority.
Recent prison breaks have bolstered al-Qaida's ranks, while feelings of Sunni marginalization and the chaos caused by the civil war in neighboring Syria are fueling its comeback....
Sunday, October 20, 2013
MoveOn.org Hosts Petition Advocating GOP Leaders Be Arrested for Sedition*
...I call on the Justice Department of the United States of America to arrest Republican Majority Leader Eric Cantor, Speaker of the House John Boehner, and other decision-making House Republican leaders for the crime of seditious conspiracy against the United States of America....
...The behavior of the House GOP in the current showdown -- whether or not they reach some sort of deal -- makes them guilty of sedition....
...Conservative opposition to Obamacare has transitioned from obsessive to treasonous. Here is the simple definition of treason: the betrayal of allegiance to the United States. One caveat: treason applies only to acts committed during times of war. Well, we are in the middle of the war on terrorism, no? So that qualifies. The GOP could point to a fuller definition of treason to argue their actions are not treasonous: "the betrayal of one's county by waging war against it or by consciously or purposely acting to aid its enemies."...
...They will shut down the government and they will not pay the bills to get their way. The word is treason, the treasonous John Boehner....
Authorities probe threat against Cruz
Law enforcement officials are investigating a threat against Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who was vaulted into national prominence with his push to defund ObamaCare.
A person identifying himself as Troy Gilmore Jr., posted on Twitter Friday morning: “Take down Ted Cruz, at his home” and listed Cruz’s home address in Houston.
“What goes around comes around CRUZ!!” the person wrote....
...I call on the Justice Department of the United States of America to arrest Republican Majority Leader Eric Cantor, Speaker of the House John Boehner, and other decision-making House Republican leaders for the crime of seditious conspiracy against the United States of America....
...The behavior of the House GOP in the current showdown -- whether or not they reach some sort of deal -- makes them guilty of sedition....
...Conservative opposition to Obamacare has transitioned from obsessive to treasonous. Here is the simple definition of treason: the betrayal of allegiance to the United States. One caveat: treason applies only to acts committed during times of war. Well, we are in the middle of the war on terrorism, no? So that qualifies. The GOP could point to a fuller definition of treason to argue their actions are not treasonous: "the betrayal of one's county by waging war against it or by consciously or purposely acting to aid its enemies."...
...They will shut down the government and they will not pay the bills to get their way. The word is treason, the treasonous John Boehner....
Authorities probe threat against Cruz
Law enforcement officials are investigating a threat against Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who was vaulted into national prominence with his push to defund ObamaCare.
A person identifying himself as Troy Gilmore Jr., posted on Twitter Friday morning: “Take down Ted Cruz, at his home” and listed Cruz’s home address in Houston.
“What goes around comes around CRUZ!!” the person wrote....
EPA facing fire for armed raid on mine in Chicken, Alaska: Population, 7
...“[A]n EPA SWAT team of heavily armed and armored agents conducted ‘paperwork’ inspections on small mining operations in what attempts to be nothing more than an effort to intimidate and scare hardworking Americans,” said Rep. Doug Lamborn, Colorado Republican, who heads the House Resources Committee's subcommittee on energy and mineral resources....
...The inspection included agents from the EPA’s Alaska Environmental Crimes Task Force, the FBI, the Coast Guard, the Bureau of Land Management, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the National Park Service, the Fish and Wildlife Service, as well as state agents from the Alaska Department of Public Safety....
...“[A]n EPA SWAT team of heavily armed and armored agents conducted ‘paperwork’ inspections on small mining operations in what attempts to be nothing more than an effort to intimidate and scare hardworking Americans,” said Rep. Doug Lamborn, Colorado Republican, who heads the House Resources Committee's subcommittee on energy and mineral resources....
...The inspection included agents from the EPA’s Alaska Environmental Crimes Task Force, the FBI, the Coast Guard, the Bureau of Land Management, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the National Park Service, the Fish and Wildlife Service, as well as state agents from the Alaska Department of Public Safety....
Obamacare's winners and losers in Bay Area
...“I was laughing at Boehner — until the mail came today,” Waschura said, referring to House Speaker John Boehner, who is leading the Republican charge to defund Obamacare.
“I really don’t like the Republican tactics, but at least now I can understand why they are so pissed about this. When you take $10,000 out of my family’s pocket each year, that’s otherwise disposable income or retirement savings that will not be going into our local economy.”
Both Vinson and Waschura have adjusted gross incomes greater than four times the federal poverty level — the cutoff for a tax credit. And while both said they anticipated their rates would go up, they didn’t realize they would rise so much.
“Of course, I want people to have health care,” Vinson said. “I just didn’t realize I would be the one who was going to pay for it personally.”...
Obamacare Website Failure Threatens Health Coverage For Millions Of Americans
A broken website imperils the largest expansion of the American safety net since the Great Society.
More than two weeks into the disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov, the website created by President Barack Obama's health care reform law still isn't working right.
"The website that was supposed to do this all in a seamless way has had way more glitches than I think are acceptable," Obama said during a Tuesday interview with KCCI television in Des Moines, Iowa. But the administration won't disclose exactly what's wrong with the health insurance exchange website, or when consumers can expect to see the promise of convenient, one-stop shopping for health benefits and financial assistance fulfilled....
Obamacare's Website Is Crashing Because It Doesn't Want You To Know How Costly Its Plans Are
A growing consensus of IT experts, outside and inside the government, have figured out a principal reason why the website for Obamacare’s federally-sponsored insurance exchange is crashing. Healthcare.gov forces you to create an account and enter detailed personal information before you can start shopping. This, in turn, creates a massive traffic bottleneck, as the government verifies your information and decides whether or not you’re eligible for subsidies. HHS bureaucrats knew this would make the website run more slowly. But they were more afraid that letting people see the underlying cost of Obamacare’s insurance plans would scare people away....
...The answer is that Obamacare wasn’t designed to help healthy people with average incomes get health insurance. It was designed to force those people to pay more for coverage, in order to subsidize insurance for people with incomes near the poverty line, and those with chronic or costly medical conditions.
But the laws’ supporters and enforcers don’t want you to know that, because it would violate the President’s incessantly repeated promise that nothing would change for the people that Obamacare doesn’t directly help. If you shop for Obamacare-based coverage without knowing if you qualify for subsidies, you might be discouraged by the law’s steep costs.... ...Robert Pear and colleagues at the New York Times have a piece up today detailing the serious problems with the federal exchange, problems that may get worse, not better. They confirm what we already knew: that the Obama administration refused to delay the implementation of the exchanges, despite the well-known problems, because they were afraid of the political blowback. “Former government officials say the White House, which was calling the shots, feared that any backtracking would further embolden Republican critics who were trying to repeal the health care law.”
As I documented last week, IT and insurance experts have been saying for at least eight months that implementation of the exchanges was going badly, that as early as February officials were warning of a “third world experience.” The Times’ sources are just as blunt. “These are not glitches,” said one insurance executive. “The extent of the problems is pretty enormous. At the end of our [conference calls with the administration], people say, ‘It’s awful, just awful.’”...
...The White House knew that its people on the front lines, people like Henry Chao, were worried that the exchanges would get botched. They saw the Congressional Research Service memorandum detailing that the administration has missed half of the statutory deadlines assigned by the law. But they were more afraid of the P.R. disaster of disclosing Obamacare’s high premiums than they were of the P.R. disaster of crashing websites. What you see is the result.
Former official: Admin refused to bring in outside help for ObamaCare website for fear GOP would subpoena them; Update: Ten-year-old technology? Update: No improvement in week two; Update: Wasn’t tested until days before launch?
...Facing such intense opposition from congressional Republicans, the administration was in a bunker mentality as it built the enrollment system, one former administration official said. Officials feared that if they called on outsiders to help with the technical details of how to run a commerce website, those companies could be subpoenaed by Hill Republicans, the former aide said. So the task fell to trusted campaign tech experts....
...“I was laughing at Boehner — until the mail came today,” Waschura said, referring to House Speaker John Boehner, who is leading the Republican charge to defund Obamacare.
“I really don’t like the Republican tactics, but at least now I can understand why they are so pissed about this. When you take $10,000 out of my family’s pocket each year, that’s otherwise disposable income or retirement savings that will not be going into our local economy.”
Both Vinson and Waschura have adjusted gross incomes greater than four times the federal poverty level — the cutoff for a tax credit. And while both said they anticipated their rates would go up, they didn’t realize they would rise so much.
“Of course, I want people to have health care,” Vinson said. “I just didn’t realize I would be the one who was going to pay for it personally.”...
Obamacare Website Failure Threatens Health Coverage For Millions Of Americans
A broken website imperils the largest expansion of the American safety net since the Great Society.
More than two weeks into the disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov, the website created by President Barack Obama's health care reform law still isn't working right.
"The website that was supposed to do this all in a seamless way has had way more glitches than I think are acceptable," Obama said during a Tuesday interview with KCCI television in Des Moines, Iowa. But the administration won't disclose exactly what's wrong with the health insurance exchange website, or when consumers can expect to see the promise of convenient, one-stop shopping for health benefits and financial assistance fulfilled....
Obamacare's Website Is Crashing Because It Doesn't Want You To Know How Costly Its Plans Are
A growing consensus of IT experts, outside and inside the government, have figured out a principal reason why the website for Obamacare’s federally-sponsored insurance exchange is crashing. Healthcare.gov forces you to create an account and enter detailed personal information before you can start shopping. This, in turn, creates a massive traffic bottleneck, as the government verifies your information and decides whether or not you’re eligible for subsidies. HHS bureaucrats knew this would make the website run more slowly. But they were more afraid that letting people see the underlying cost of Obamacare’s insurance plans would scare people away....
...The answer is that Obamacare wasn’t designed to help healthy people with average incomes get health insurance. It was designed to force those people to pay more for coverage, in order to subsidize insurance for people with incomes near the poverty line, and those with chronic or costly medical conditions.
But the laws’ supporters and enforcers don’t want you to know that, because it would violate the President’s incessantly repeated promise that nothing would change for the people that Obamacare doesn’t directly help. If you shop for Obamacare-based coverage without knowing if you qualify for subsidies, you might be discouraged by the law’s steep costs.... ...Robert Pear and colleagues at the New York Times have a piece up today detailing the serious problems with the federal exchange, problems that may get worse, not better. They confirm what we already knew: that the Obama administration refused to delay the implementation of the exchanges, despite the well-known problems, because they were afraid of the political blowback. “Former government officials say the White House, which was calling the shots, feared that any backtracking would further embolden Republican critics who were trying to repeal the health care law.”
As I documented last week, IT and insurance experts have been saying for at least eight months that implementation of the exchanges was going badly, that as early as February officials were warning of a “third world experience.” The Times’ sources are just as blunt. “These are not glitches,” said one insurance executive. “The extent of the problems is pretty enormous. At the end of our [conference calls with the administration], people say, ‘It’s awful, just awful.’”...
...The White House knew that its people on the front lines, people like Henry Chao, were worried that the exchanges would get botched. They saw the Congressional Research Service memorandum detailing that the administration has missed half of the statutory deadlines assigned by the law. But they were more afraid of the P.R. disaster of disclosing Obamacare’s high premiums than they were of the P.R. disaster of crashing websites. What you see is the result.
Former official: Admin refused to bring in outside help for ObamaCare website for fear GOP would subpoena them; Update: Ten-year-old technology? Update: No improvement in week two; Update: Wasn’t tested until days before launch?
...Facing such intense opposition from congressional Republicans, the administration was in a bunker mentality as it built the enrollment system, one former administration official said. Officials feared that if they called on outsiders to help with the technical details of how to run a commerce website, those companies could be subpoenaed by Hill Republicans, the former aide said. So the task fell to trusted campaign tech experts....
Liberal blogger gets skewered on Twitter for failed Obamacare prediction
Poor Matt Yglesias.
The liberal economics blogger for Slate thinks he knows more than you. So when people began predicting that the Obamacare exchanges might not get off to such a great start, he was there to correct them.
“I wanted to once again take the opportunity to lay down a marker and say once again that Obamacare implementation is going to be a huge political success,” he wrote in July on his blog....
Bill Maher: Fear of assassination drives Obama’s policies
HBO’s Bill Maher suggested during his show Friday that President Obama is leading as a “centrist” out of fear of being assassinated like John F. Kennedy.
The “Real Time” host said that leaders such as JFK always “get cut out of the picture, violently or otherwise, and maybe that is why Barack Obama is a little more of the centrist than we want him to be.”
MSNBC host Chris Matthews, appearing as a guest on the show, said he was surprised by the “extraordinary statement.”
“I’m amazed. I’m impressed you think that,” Mr. Matthews said.
Mr. Maher explained that assassination is probably something that President Obama thinks about at night.
“He has to change his policies for that reason?” Mr. Matthews asked.
“I don’t think that is an insult to say to somebody that he may modulate his policies because he is afraid of all the hate that he sees,” Mr. Maher replied....
Edward Snowden’s secrets may be dangerous. I would not have published them
If MI5 warns that this is not in the public interest who am I to disbelieve them?
...In which case, guys, uncurl your lips and explain what it is, exactly, that the NSA and GCHQ, are doing that is so profoundly terrible? What justifies all the posturing we’ve been subjected to these past months? I watched The Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald, who obtained the Snowden scoop, on Newsnight the other evening and was nonplussed. I wanted him to say what the real scandal was that he had uncovered. But he did not....
...Which leads on to the second issue. If the security services insist something is contrary to the public interest, and might harm their operations, who am I (despite my grounding from Watergate onwards) to disbelieve them? ...
Poor Matt Yglesias.
The liberal economics blogger for Slate thinks he knows more than you. So when people began predicting that the Obamacare exchanges might not get off to such a great start, he was there to correct them.
“I wanted to once again take the opportunity to lay down a marker and say once again that Obamacare implementation is going to be a huge political success,” he wrote in July on his blog....
Bill Maher: Fear of assassination drives Obama’s policies
HBO’s Bill Maher suggested during his show Friday that President Obama is leading as a “centrist” out of fear of being assassinated like John F. Kennedy.
The “Real Time” host said that leaders such as JFK always “get cut out of the picture, violently or otherwise, and maybe that is why Barack Obama is a little more of the centrist than we want him to be.”
MSNBC host Chris Matthews, appearing as a guest on the show, said he was surprised by the “extraordinary statement.”
“I’m amazed. I’m impressed you think that,” Mr. Matthews said.
Mr. Maher explained that assassination is probably something that President Obama thinks about at night.
“He has to change his policies for that reason?” Mr. Matthews asked.
“I don’t think that is an insult to say to somebody that he may modulate his policies because he is afraid of all the hate that he sees,” Mr. Maher replied....
Edward Snowden’s secrets may be dangerous. I would not have published them
If MI5 warns that this is not in the public interest who am I to disbelieve them?
...In which case, guys, uncurl your lips and explain what it is, exactly, that the NSA and GCHQ, are doing that is so profoundly terrible? What justifies all the posturing we’ve been subjected to these past months? I watched The Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald, who obtained the Snowden scoop, on Newsnight the other evening and was nonplussed. I wanted him to say what the real scandal was that he had uncovered. But he did not....
...Which leads on to the second issue. If the security services insist something is contrary to the public interest, and might harm their operations, who am I (despite my grounding from Watergate onwards) to disbelieve them? ...
Does Obama Know? Does Obama Care?
...The heart may not bleed for insurance executives burdened with administrative costs, but this is actually a serious threat to the ability of Americans to get insurance. Under a provision of ObamaCare known as the "Medical Loss Ratio," insurers in the individual marketplace are required to spend at least 80% of all premium dollars on medical care. If the exchanges are "fixed" so that many more faulty applications get through, the new administrative costs will have to come out of the insurance companies' bottom line, making it harder for them to stay in business.
The Journal article notes that the largely nonfunctional exchanges may also worsen the "adverse selection" problem that comes with redefining insurance as a redistributive scheme:
As consumers struggle to navigate healthcare.gov, some health-plan executives worry that only the sickest--those who most expect to need insurance--will persist in seeking coverage. If younger consumers who are on the fence about buying coverage find the process too onerous, insurers may end up with too few healthier members to offset the costs of less-healthy enrollees....
...For me, and for other critics of Obamacare, the problem with the law was never about these technical matters. I didn't think the system wouldn't work because the government couldn't build a website, but because the basic health economics involved is deeply misguided and would take the (badly inadequate) American health-financing system in the wrong direction. So these problems only seem like a prelude to other, larger problems. But Obamacare was also always going to be a test of the sheer capacity of the administrative state to actually do what it claims the authority and ability to do. At this point, it looks as though we may be witnessing a failure of the administrative state on a level unimagined even by its staunchest critics. We may be. But we'll have to see....
She Could Just Marry Kanye West
There's a theory that feminism isn't really an ideology but a form of feminine contrivance--a set of rationalizations designed to conceal one's true nature. In support of that idea we present a piece from Jezebel.com by one Lindy West, titled "Men Who Insist You Change Your Name Make Terrible Husbands."...
...So wait a minute. She starts by denouncing men who insist, against the wishes of their prospective wives, that they change names, but it turns out she's with a man who insists, against her stated wishes, that she not change names. What logical conclusion is there other than that what she really wants is a dominant man?
...The heart may not bleed for insurance executives burdened with administrative costs, but this is actually a serious threat to the ability of Americans to get insurance. Under a provision of ObamaCare known as the "Medical Loss Ratio," insurers in the individual marketplace are required to spend at least 80% of all premium dollars on medical care. If the exchanges are "fixed" so that many more faulty applications get through, the new administrative costs will have to come out of the insurance companies' bottom line, making it harder for them to stay in business.
The Journal article notes that the largely nonfunctional exchanges may also worsen the "adverse selection" problem that comes with redefining insurance as a redistributive scheme:
As consumers struggle to navigate healthcare.gov, some health-plan executives worry that only the sickest--those who most expect to need insurance--will persist in seeking coverage. If younger consumers who are on the fence about buying coverage find the process too onerous, insurers may end up with too few healthier members to offset the costs of less-healthy enrollees....
...For me, and for other critics of Obamacare, the problem with the law was never about these technical matters. I didn't think the system wouldn't work because the government couldn't build a website, but because the basic health economics involved is deeply misguided and would take the (badly inadequate) American health-financing system in the wrong direction. So these problems only seem like a prelude to other, larger problems. But Obamacare was also always going to be a test of the sheer capacity of the administrative state to actually do what it claims the authority and ability to do. At this point, it looks as though we may be witnessing a failure of the administrative state on a level unimagined even by its staunchest critics. We may be. But we'll have to see....
She Could Just Marry Kanye West
There's a theory that feminism isn't really an ideology but a form of feminine contrivance--a set of rationalizations designed to conceal one's true nature. In support of that idea we present a piece from Jezebel.com by one Lindy West, titled "Men Who Insist You Change Your Name Make Terrible Husbands."...
...So wait a minute. She starts by denouncing men who insist, against the wishes of their prospective wives, that they change names, but it turns out she's with a man who insists, against her stated wishes, that she not change names. What logical conclusion is there other than that what she really wants is a dominant man?
The Wannabe Oppressed
What do America’s college students want? They want to be oppressed. More precisely, a surprising number of students at America’s finest colleges and universities wish to appear as victims — to themselves, as well as to others — without the discomfort of actually experiencing victimization. Here is where global warming comes in. The secret appeal of campus climate activism lies in its ability to turn otherwise happy, healthy, and prosperous young people into an oppressed class, at least in their own imaginings. Climate activists say to the world, “I’ll save you.” Yet deep down they’re thinking, “Oppress me.”...
...And why should the privileged wish to become victims? To alleviate guilt and to appropriate the victim’s superior prestige. In the neo-Marxist dispensation now regnant on our college campuses, after all, the advantaged are ignorant and guilty while the oppressed are innocent and wise. The initial solution to this problem was for the privileged to identify with “struggling groups” by wearing, say, a Palestinian keffiyeh. Yet better than merely empathizing with the oppressed is to be oppressed. This is the climate movement’s signal innovation....
...In this atmosphere, students cannot help wishing to see themselves as members of a persecuted group. Climate activism answers their existential challenges and gives them a sense of crusading purpose in a lonely secular world. The planet, as Bruckner would have it, is the new proletariat. Yet substitute “upper-middle-class” for “planet,” and the progression of victimhood is explained. Global warming allows the upper-middle-class to join the proletariat, cloaking erstwhile oppressors in the mantle of righteous victimhood.
Insight into the quasi-religious motivations that stand behind climate activism cannot finally resolve the empirical controversies at stake in our debate over global warming. Yet understanding climate activism as a cultural phenomenon does yield insight into that debate. The religious character of the climate-change crusade chokes off serious discussion. It stigmatizes reasonable skepticism about climate catastrophism (which is different from questioning the fundamental physics of carbon dioxide’s effect on the atmosphere). Climate apocalypticism drags what ought to be careful consideration of the costs and benefits of various policy options into the fraught world of identity politics. The wish to be oppressed turns into the wish to be morally superior, which turns into the pleasure of silencing alleged oppressors, which turns into its own sort of hatred and oppression....
Apocalyptic Daze
...Over the last half-century, leftist intellectuals have identified two great scapegoats for the world’s woes. First, Marxism designated capitalism as responsible for human misery. Second, “Third World” ideology, disappointed by the bourgeois indulgences of the working class, targeted the West, supposedly the inventor of slavery, colonialism, and imperialism. The guilty party that environmentalism now accuses—mankind itself, in its will to dominate the planet—is essentially a composite of the previous two, a capitalism invented by a West that oppresses peoples and destroys the earth. Indeed, environmentalism sees itself as the fulfillment of all earlier critiques. “There are only two solutions,” Bolivian president Evo Morales declared in 2009. “Either capitalism dies, or Mother Earth dies.”...
...One consequence of this certainty is that we begin to suspect that the numberless Cassandras who prophesy all around us do not intend to warn us so much as to condemn us. In classical Judaism, the prophet sought to give new life to God’s cause against kings and the powerful. In Christianity, millenarian movements embodied a hope for justice against a Church wallowing in luxury and vice. But in a secular society, a prophet has no function other than indignation. So it happens that he becomes intoxicated with his own words and claims a legitimacy with no basis, calling down the destruction that he pretends to warn against. You’ll get what you’ve got coming!—that is the death wish that our misanthropes address to us. These are not great souls who alert us to troubles but tiny minds who wish us suffering if we have the presumption to refuse to listen to them. Catastrophe is not their fear but their joy. It is a short distance from lucidity to bitterness, from prediction to anathema....
What do America’s college students want? They want to be oppressed. More precisely, a surprising number of students at America’s finest colleges and universities wish to appear as victims — to themselves, as well as to others — without the discomfort of actually experiencing victimization. Here is where global warming comes in. The secret appeal of campus climate activism lies in its ability to turn otherwise happy, healthy, and prosperous young people into an oppressed class, at least in their own imaginings. Climate activists say to the world, “I’ll save you.” Yet deep down they’re thinking, “Oppress me.”...
...And why should the privileged wish to become victims? To alleviate guilt and to appropriate the victim’s superior prestige. In the neo-Marxist dispensation now regnant on our college campuses, after all, the advantaged are ignorant and guilty while the oppressed are innocent and wise. The initial solution to this problem was for the privileged to identify with “struggling groups” by wearing, say, a Palestinian keffiyeh. Yet better than merely empathizing with the oppressed is to be oppressed. This is the climate movement’s signal innovation....
...In this atmosphere, students cannot help wishing to see themselves as members of a persecuted group. Climate activism answers their existential challenges and gives them a sense of crusading purpose in a lonely secular world. The planet, as Bruckner would have it, is the new proletariat. Yet substitute “upper-middle-class” for “planet,” and the progression of victimhood is explained. Global warming allows the upper-middle-class to join the proletariat, cloaking erstwhile oppressors in the mantle of righteous victimhood.
Insight into the quasi-religious motivations that stand behind climate activism cannot finally resolve the empirical controversies at stake in our debate over global warming. Yet understanding climate activism as a cultural phenomenon does yield insight into that debate. The religious character of the climate-change crusade chokes off serious discussion. It stigmatizes reasonable skepticism about climate catastrophism (which is different from questioning the fundamental physics of carbon dioxide’s effect on the atmosphere). Climate apocalypticism drags what ought to be careful consideration of the costs and benefits of various policy options into the fraught world of identity politics. The wish to be oppressed turns into the wish to be morally superior, which turns into the pleasure of silencing alleged oppressors, which turns into its own sort of hatred and oppression....
Apocalyptic Daze
...Over the last half-century, leftist intellectuals have identified two great scapegoats for the world’s woes. First, Marxism designated capitalism as responsible for human misery. Second, “Third World” ideology, disappointed by the bourgeois indulgences of the working class, targeted the West, supposedly the inventor of slavery, colonialism, and imperialism. The guilty party that environmentalism now accuses—mankind itself, in its will to dominate the planet—is essentially a composite of the previous two, a capitalism invented by a West that oppresses peoples and destroys the earth. Indeed, environmentalism sees itself as the fulfillment of all earlier critiques. “There are only two solutions,” Bolivian president Evo Morales declared in 2009. “Either capitalism dies, or Mother Earth dies.”...
...One consequence of this certainty is that we begin to suspect that the numberless Cassandras who prophesy all around us do not intend to warn us so much as to condemn us. In classical Judaism, the prophet sought to give new life to God’s cause against kings and the powerful. In Christianity, millenarian movements embodied a hope for justice against a Church wallowing in luxury and vice. But in a secular society, a prophet has no function other than indignation. So it happens that he becomes intoxicated with his own words and claims a legitimacy with no basis, calling down the destruction that he pretends to warn against. You’ll get what you’ve got coming!—that is the death wish that our misanthropes address to us. These are not great souls who alert us to troubles but tiny minds who wish us suffering if we have the presumption to refuse to listen to them. Catastrophe is not their fear but their joy. It is a short distance from lucidity to bitterness, from prediction to anathema....
Sunday, October 13, 2013
NSA’s Own Hardware Backdoors May Still Be a “Problem from Hell”
...U.S. officials and policy makers have also spoken strongly about the possibility that such tactics might be in use by China, citing that government’s attitude toward the U.S. and the fact that a large proportion of all computer hardware is manufactured in the country (see “Why the U.S. Is So Afraid of Huawei”). However, until the recent reports, including a major piece in the New York Times earlier this month, there had never been specific public claims that a government was inserting secret vulnerabilities into computer hardware.
The Times report says, however, that the NSA inserted backdoors into some encryption chips that businesses and governments use to secure their data, and that the agency worked with an unnamed U.S. manufacturer to add backdoors to computer hardware about to be shipped to an overseas target....
...U.S. officials and policy makers have also spoken strongly about the possibility that such tactics might be in use by China, citing that government’s attitude toward the U.S. and the fact that a large proportion of all computer hardware is manufactured in the country (see “Why the U.S. Is So Afraid of Huawei”). However, until the recent reports, including a major piece in the New York Times earlier this month, there had never been specific public claims that a government was inserting secret vulnerabilities into computer hardware.
The Times report says, however, that the NSA inserted backdoors into some encryption chips that businesses and governments use to secure their data, and that the agency worked with an unnamed U.S. manufacturer to add backdoors to computer hardware about to be shipped to an overseas target....
Off-Duty NYPD Cop Charged With Riot, Criminal Mischief After Motorcycle Gang Road Rage Incident
New York police have arrested one of their own on riot and criminal mischief charges in connection with the September 29 attack on an SUV driver in New York City, a law enforcement official said Tuesday....
Arrested Undercover NYPD Cop in Bike Gang Road Rage Incident Could've Ruined Larger Case
...CBS News senior correspondent John Miller, a former deputy commissioner with the New York Police Department, said on "CBS This Morning": "This is a story that starts out as not such a good day (for the NYPD) because they had a detective on the scene who was undercover, who took no action to intervene, and then waited four days to come forward and say, 'I was there.' That got worse (on Tuesday) when they reviewed the videotapes they received this week from other sources other than the YouTube video we first saw, and they see their own detective allegedly banging out the back window of the SUV during the incidents that led up to the man being dragged from the car. So that really changed the calculus from, was this a departmental matter to a criminal matter."...
New York police have arrested one of their own on riot and criminal mischief charges in connection with the September 29 attack on an SUV driver in New York City, a law enforcement official said Tuesday....
Arrested Undercover NYPD Cop in Bike Gang Road Rage Incident Could've Ruined Larger Case
...CBS News senior correspondent John Miller, a former deputy commissioner with the New York Police Department, said on "CBS This Morning": "This is a story that starts out as not such a good day (for the NYPD) because they had a detective on the scene who was undercover, who took no action to intervene, and then waited four days to come forward and say, 'I was there.' That got worse (on Tuesday) when they reviewed the videotapes they received this week from other sources other than the YouTube video we first saw, and they see their own detective allegedly banging out the back window of the SUV during the incidents that led up to the man being dragged from the car. So that really changed the calculus from, was this a departmental matter to a criminal matter."...
Prison Rape: The Data
...The new studies confirm previous findings that most of those who commit sexual abuse in detention are corrections staff, not inmates. That is true in all types of detention facilities, but especially in juvenile facilities. The new studies also confirm that most victims are abused repeatedly during the course of a year. In juvenile facilities, victims of sexual misconduct by staff members were more likely to report eleven or more instances of abuse than a single, isolated occurrence....
...A.A. is a gay man who had a prior history of being sexually abused—again, the two characteristics that most strongly predict rape in jail—but he wasn't asked about either of these things when he was admitted to the OPP. Instead he was put in a crowded communal cell where he was beaten, choked until he passed out, cut with a knife, masturbated upon, and orally and anally gang-raped by other inmates "so many times I lost count."
There were no security cameras in the cell and no guards around to hear him screaming. He filed grievances claiming that he had been raped, but they went unanswered. ("We dropped the ball on that," said a representative of the OPP at the hearing.) When he finally found the courage to ask a guard for help directly, he was laughed at and told, "a faggot raped in prison—imagine that."...
...The new studies confirm previous findings that most of those who commit sexual abuse in detention are corrections staff, not inmates. That is true in all types of detention facilities, but especially in juvenile facilities. The new studies also confirm that most victims are abused repeatedly during the course of a year. In juvenile facilities, victims of sexual misconduct by staff members were more likely to report eleven or more instances of abuse than a single, isolated occurrence....
...A.A. is a gay man who had a prior history of being sexually abused—again, the two characteristics that most strongly predict rape in jail—but he wasn't asked about either of these things when he was admitted to the OPP. Instead he was put in a crowded communal cell where he was beaten, choked until he passed out, cut with a knife, masturbated upon, and orally and anally gang-raped by other inmates "so many times I lost count."
There were no security cameras in the cell and no guards around to hear him screaming. He filed grievances claiming that he had been raped, but they went unanswered. ("We dropped the ball on that," said a representative of the OPP at the hearing.) When he finally found the courage to ask a guard for help directly, he was laughed at and told, "a faggot raped in prison—imagine that."...
Suit in Oklahoma could knock out ObamaCare
...Adler and Cannon studied the actual text of the law — something Congress never did — and found that it explicitly provided a subsidy only to those who receive their insurance through state exchanges. Indeed, the subsidies and tax credits were intended to be the carrot that induced states to set up exchanges rather than force the feds to set up their own.
The Internal Revenue Service has ruled that the language of the statute should be “interpreted” to extend the subsidies to those enrolled in state or federal exchanges, but that’s not what the law says. Section 1401 of the act, according to their article, “authorizes premium-assistance tax credits and makes them available only through state-run Exchanges.”
The section says that taxpayers may receive a tax credit only if “the taxpayer is covered by a qualified health plan ... that was enrolled in through an Exchange established by the State under section 1311 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.”
Adler and Cannon argue that “by its express terms, this provision only applies to exchanges ‘established by a state’ and ‘established ... under Section 1311.’ Section 1401 further emphasizes that tax credits are available only through Section 1311 exchanges.” ...
...Unfortunately for President Obama, the statute implies no such thing. It is not only silent on any subsidies for federal exchanges, it is clear that the subsidies were intended to encourage states to set up exchanges....
Obamacare's winners and losers in Bay Area
Cindy Vinson and Tom Waschura are big believers in the Affordable Care Act. They vote independent and are proud to say they helped elect and re-elect President Barack Obama.
Yet, like many other Bay Area residents who pay for their own medical insurance, they were floored last week when they opened their bills: Their policies were being replaced with pricier plans that conform to all the requirements of the new health care law.
Vinson, of San Jose, will pay $1,800 more a year for an individual policy, while Waschura, of Portola Valley, will cough up almost $10,000 more for insurance for his family of four....
...Adler and Cannon studied the actual text of the law — something Congress never did — and found that it explicitly provided a subsidy only to those who receive their insurance through state exchanges. Indeed, the subsidies and tax credits were intended to be the carrot that induced states to set up exchanges rather than force the feds to set up their own.
The Internal Revenue Service has ruled that the language of the statute should be “interpreted” to extend the subsidies to those enrolled in state or federal exchanges, but that’s not what the law says. Section 1401 of the act, according to their article, “authorizes premium-assistance tax credits and makes them available only through state-run Exchanges.”
The section says that taxpayers may receive a tax credit only if “the taxpayer is covered by a qualified health plan ... that was enrolled in through an Exchange established by the State under section 1311 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.”
Adler and Cannon argue that “by its express terms, this provision only applies to exchanges ‘established by a state’ and ‘established ... under Section 1311.’ Section 1401 further emphasizes that tax credits are available only through Section 1311 exchanges.” ...
...Unfortunately for President Obama, the statute implies no such thing. It is not only silent on any subsidies for federal exchanges, it is clear that the subsidies were intended to encourage states to set up exchanges....
Obamacare's winners and losers in Bay Area
Cindy Vinson and Tom Waschura are big believers in the Affordable Care Act. They vote independent and are proud to say they helped elect and re-elect President Barack Obama.
Yet, like many other Bay Area residents who pay for their own medical insurance, they were floored last week when they opened their bills: Their policies were being replaced with pricier plans that conform to all the requirements of the new health care law.
Vinson, of San Jose, will pay $1,800 more a year for an individual policy, while Waschura, of Portola Valley, will cough up almost $10,000 more for insurance for his family of four....
ATF tries to block Fast and Furious whistle-blower from publishing book
The ATF agent who blew the whistle on Operation Fast and Furious has been denied permission to write a book on the botched anti-gun trafficking sting "because it would have a negative impact on morale," according to the very agency responsible for the scandal.
After first trying to stop the operation internally, ATF Agent John Dodson went to Congress and eventually the media following the death of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry in December 2010. Two guns found at the murder scene were sold through the ATF operation.
Dodson's book, titled "The Unarmed Truth," provides the first inside account of how the federal government permitted and helped sell some 2,000 guns to Mexican drug cartels, despite evidence the guns killed innocent people.
Dodson, who is working with publisher Simon & Schuster, submitted his manuscript to the department for review, per federal rules. However, it was denied.
Greg Serres, an ATF ethics official, told Dodson that any of his supervisors at any level could disapprove outside employment "for any reason."
Serres' letter said: "This would have a negative impact on morale in the Phoenix Field Division and would have a detremental effect [sic] on our relationships with DEA and FBI." ...
The ATF agent who blew the whistle on Operation Fast and Furious has been denied permission to write a book on the botched anti-gun trafficking sting "because it would have a negative impact on morale," according to the very agency responsible for the scandal.
After first trying to stop the operation internally, ATF Agent John Dodson went to Congress and eventually the media following the death of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry in December 2010. Two guns found at the murder scene were sold through the ATF operation.
Dodson's book, titled "The Unarmed Truth," provides the first inside account of how the federal government permitted and helped sell some 2,000 guns to Mexican drug cartels, despite evidence the guns killed innocent people.
Dodson, who is working with publisher Simon & Schuster, submitted his manuscript to the department for review, per federal rules. However, it was denied.
Greg Serres, an ATF ethics official, told Dodson that any of his supervisors at any level could disapprove outside employment "for any reason."
Serres' letter said: "This would have a negative impact on morale in the Phoenix Field Division and would have a detremental effect [sic] on our relationships with DEA and FBI." ...
Data You Can Believe In
Earlier this year, senior members of President Barack Obama’s campaign team took a trip to Las Vegas. Nevada holds a special place in Obama-wonk lore as the place where his monthslong strategy of defeating Hillary Clinton by slowly and surely amassing delegates emerged. But the operatives were not there in March for any political reason. They were there to make money — specifically to land what they hoped would be the first corporate client for their new advertising business, Analytics Media Group (A.M.G.). Its bland name obscures its relatively grand promise: to deliver to commercial advertisers some of the Obama campaign’s secret, technologically advanced formulas for reaching voters....
...A.M.G. was founded in late December by a splinter group of longtime Obama advisers: Larry Grisolano, who oversaw how the campaign spent its advertising dollars; Grisolano’s direct-mail partners Terry Walsh and Pete Giangreco; Jeff Link, a seasoned Iowa veteran who was an outside adviser in 2012; and Erik Smith, an advertising consultant for the 2012 campaign, whose work running one of the biggest 2004 pro-Kerry outside groups gave him an inside track with party donors from the corporate world....
...Recalling that Vegas trip while sitting at a MacBook Pro-dotted coffee shop in Brooklyn in March, McLean treated his shift from selling Obama to selling Caesars as a small discomfort that was necessary if he wanted to keep working on the technological advancements he and his colleagues developed on the campaign. In a nonpresidential year, no political effort would have the money to finance what he described as the “huge R.& D. project” that the Obama campaign effectively became. The resources for that kind of project could now be found only in corporate America. If companies with big budgets wanted members of Obama’s team to do for them whatever it was that they did for the president, McLean couldn’t see why they shouldn’t answer the call....
...But the (re)selling of the president, 2012, was an entirely different matter. The campaign recruited the best young minds in the booming fields of analytics and behavioral science and placed them in a room they called “the cave” for up to 16 hours a day over the course of roughly 16 months. After the election, when the technology wizards finally came out, they had not only helped produce a victory that defied a couple of historical predictors; they also developed a host of highly effective marketing techniques that were either entirely new or had never been tried on such a grand scale....
...A couple of weeks before Election Day, over drinks at the Pump Room in Chicago’s Gold Coast, a safe distance away from the re-election headquarters and its press minders, Grisolano and Erik Smith first let on that there was far more happening in the Chicago campaign office than any of us covering it truly understood. Grisolano told me that the campaign literally knew every single wavering voter in the country that it needed to persuade to vote for Obama, by name, address, race, sex and income. What’s more, he hinted, the campaign had figured out how to get its television advertisements in front of them with a previously inconceivable level of knowledge and accuracy....
...Why not try sifting through self-described supporters’ Facebook pages in search of friends who might be on the campaign’s list of the most persuadable voters? Then the campaign could ask the self-identified supporters to bring their undecided friends along. The technique, as they saw it, could also get supporters to urge friends to register to vote, to vote early or to volunteer and donate.
...They started with a list that grew to a million people who had signed into the campaign Web site through Facebook. When people opted to do so, they were met with a prompt asking to grant the campaign permission to scan their Facebook friends lists, their photos and other personal information. In another prompt, the campaign asked for access to the users’ Facebook news feeds, which 25 percent declined, St. Clair said.
Once permission was granted, the campaign had access to millions of names and faces they could match against their lists of persuadable voters, potential donors, unregistered voters and so on. “It would take us 5 to 10 seconds to get a friends list and match it against the voter list,” St. Clair said. They found matches about 50 percent of the time, he said. But the campaign’s ultimate goal was to deputize the closest Obama-supporting friends of voters who were wavering in their affections for the president. “We would grab the top 50 you were most active with and then crawl their wall” to figure out who were most likely to be their real-life friends, not just casual Facebook acquaintances. St. Clair, a former high-school marching-band member who now wears a leather Diesel jacket, explained: “We asked to see photos but really we were looking for who were tagged in photos with you, which was a really great way to dredge up old college friends — and ex-girlfriends,” he said.
The campaign’s exhaustive use of Facebook triggered the site’s internal safeguards. “It was more like we blew through an alarm that their engineers hadn’t planned for or knew about,” said St. Clair, who had been working at a small firm in Chicago and joined the campaign at the suggestion of a friend. “They’d sigh and say, ‘You can do this as long as you stop doing it on Nov. 7.’ ” (Facebook officials say warning bells go off when the site sees large amounts of unusual activity, but in each case the company was satisfied the campaign was not violating its privacy and data standards.)...
...Her previous employer, Navic Networks, was a very early pioneer in the field of set-top-box data collection. And she was one of the early programmers to figure out how to make a television, designed as a one-way path for sending programming into American homes, relay information back about what exactly a viewer was watching.
Davidsen determined that Rentrak could roughly do what Grisolano wanted it to do: produce data that could be checked against Wagner’s list of most-persuadable voters to find matches. Rentrak had access to the set-top boxes in the homes of thousands of the targeted voters in every competitive market of every swing state. (For instance, Rentrak had 100,000 people in its Denver sample, some 20,000 of whom were on the Obama list; Nielsen had a total of 600 people in Denver.)
But there was the potentially politically explosive matter of privacy. Unlike Facebook, where users were at least giving the campaign explicit permission to collect personal data even if they had not read the fine print, television watchers were making no such agreement. To address this, the campaign and Rentrak hired a third party to “anonymize” the data so that they would only know that the information was coming from a set-top box of somebody on the persuadable list; identifying information would be stripped away....
Earlier this year, senior members of President Barack Obama’s campaign team took a trip to Las Vegas. Nevada holds a special place in Obama-wonk lore as the place where his monthslong strategy of defeating Hillary Clinton by slowly and surely amassing delegates emerged. But the operatives were not there in March for any political reason. They were there to make money — specifically to land what they hoped would be the first corporate client for their new advertising business, Analytics Media Group (A.M.G.). Its bland name obscures its relatively grand promise: to deliver to commercial advertisers some of the Obama campaign’s secret, technologically advanced formulas for reaching voters....
...A.M.G. was founded in late December by a splinter group of longtime Obama advisers: Larry Grisolano, who oversaw how the campaign spent its advertising dollars; Grisolano’s direct-mail partners Terry Walsh and Pete Giangreco; Jeff Link, a seasoned Iowa veteran who was an outside adviser in 2012; and Erik Smith, an advertising consultant for the 2012 campaign, whose work running one of the biggest 2004 pro-Kerry outside groups gave him an inside track with party donors from the corporate world....
...Recalling that Vegas trip while sitting at a MacBook Pro-dotted coffee shop in Brooklyn in March, McLean treated his shift from selling Obama to selling Caesars as a small discomfort that was necessary if he wanted to keep working on the technological advancements he and his colleagues developed on the campaign. In a nonpresidential year, no political effort would have the money to finance what he described as the “huge R.& D. project” that the Obama campaign effectively became. The resources for that kind of project could now be found only in corporate America. If companies with big budgets wanted members of Obama’s team to do for them whatever it was that they did for the president, McLean couldn’t see why they shouldn’t answer the call....
...But the (re)selling of the president, 2012, was an entirely different matter. The campaign recruited the best young minds in the booming fields of analytics and behavioral science and placed them in a room they called “the cave” for up to 16 hours a day over the course of roughly 16 months. After the election, when the technology wizards finally came out, they had not only helped produce a victory that defied a couple of historical predictors; they also developed a host of highly effective marketing techniques that were either entirely new or had never been tried on such a grand scale....
...A couple of weeks before Election Day, over drinks at the Pump Room in Chicago’s Gold Coast, a safe distance away from the re-election headquarters and its press minders, Grisolano and Erik Smith first let on that there was far more happening in the Chicago campaign office than any of us covering it truly understood. Grisolano told me that the campaign literally knew every single wavering voter in the country that it needed to persuade to vote for Obama, by name, address, race, sex and income. What’s more, he hinted, the campaign had figured out how to get its television advertisements in front of them with a previously inconceivable level of knowledge and accuracy....
...Why not try sifting through self-described supporters’ Facebook pages in search of friends who might be on the campaign’s list of the most persuadable voters? Then the campaign could ask the self-identified supporters to bring their undecided friends along. The technique, as they saw it, could also get supporters to urge friends to register to vote, to vote early or to volunteer and donate.
...They started with a list that grew to a million people who had signed into the campaign Web site through Facebook. When people opted to do so, they were met with a prompt asking to grant the campaign permission to scan their Facebook friends lists, their photos and other personal information. In another prompt, the campaign asked for access to the users’ Facebook news feeds, which 25 percent declined, St. Clair said.
Once permission was granted, the campaign had access to millions of names and faces they could match against their lists of persuadable voters, potential donors, unregistered voters and so on. “It would take us 5 to 10 seconds to get a friends list and match it against the voter list,” St. Clair said. They found matches about 50 percent of the time, he said. But the campaign’s ultimate goal was to deputize the closest Obama-supporting friends of voters who were wavering in their affections for the president. “We would grab the top 50 you were most active with and then crawl their wall” to figure out who were most likely to be their real-life friends, not just casual Facebook acquaintances. St. Clair, a former high-school marching-band member who now wears a leather Diesel jacket, explained: “We asked to see photos but really we were looking for who were tagged in photos with you, which was a really great way to dredge up old college friends — and ex-girlfriends,” he said.
The campaign’s exhaustive use of Facebook triggered the site’s internal safeguards. “It was more like we blew through an alarm that their engineers hadn’t planned for or knew about,” said St. Clair, who had been working at a small firm in Chicago and joined the campaign at the suggestion of a friend. “They’d sigh and say, ‘You can do this as long as you stop doing it on Nov. 7.’ ” (Facebook officials say warning bells go off when the site sees large amounts of unusual activity, but in each case the company was satisfied the campaign was not violating its privacy and data standards.)...
...Her previous employer, Navic Networks, was a very early pioneer in the field of set-top-box data collection. And she was one of the early programmers to figure out how to make a television, designed as a one-way path for sending programming into American homes, relay information back about what exactly a viewer was watching.
Davidsen determined that Rentrak could roughly do what Grisolano wanted it to do: produce data that could be checked against Wagner’s list of most-persuadable voters to find matches. Rentrak had access to the set-top boxes in the homes of thousands of the targeted voters in every competitive market of every swing state. (For instance, Rentrak had 100,000 people in its Denver sample, some 20,000 of whom were on the Obama list; Nielsen had a total of 600 people in Denver.)
But there was the potentially politically explosive matter of privacy. Unlike Facebook, where users were at least giving the campaign explicit permission to collect personal data even if they had not read the fine print, television watchers were making no such agreement. To address this, the campaign and Rentrak hired a third party to “anonymize” the data so that they would only know that the information was coming from a set-top box of somebody on the persuadable list; identifying information would be stripped away....
The Housing and Financial Meltdowns Revisited
...One wonders if Warren et al. ever bother to look at the facts, particularly the passage of Glass-Steagall and what, if any, role the repeal actually played in the crisis. Since they never say anything specific, it’s hard to know if this is anything more than an incantation designed to blame the “free [sic] market” and to bolster their case for bureaucratic management of our lives (which they call “the economy”). It takes Herculean ignorance or dishonesty to claim that America had free banking before 2010. Hence, this is a classic confirmation of my observation that no matter how much the government controls the economic system, any problem will be blamed on whatever small zone of freedom remains....
...“Incidentally,” they write, “no other developed country has ever seen fit to separate commercial banking from investment banking. Banks in Germany and Switzerland have always been free to engage in underwriting and securities holding to no obvious harm.” Aren’t we often told that Europe is much more enlightened in such matters?...
Clinton’s Legacy: The Financial and Housing Meltdown ...The meltdown was the consequence of a combination of the easy money and low interest rates engineered by the Federal Reserve and the easy housing engineered by a variety of government agencies and policies. Those agencies include the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and two nominally private “government-sponsored enterprises” (GSEs), Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The agencies — along with laws such as the Community Reinvestment Act (passed in the 1970s, then fortified in the Clinton years), which required banks to make loans to people with poor and nonexistent credit histories — made widespread homeownership a national goal. This all led to a home-buying frenzy and an explosion of subprime and other non-prime mortgages, which banks and GSEs bundled into dubious securities and peddled to investors worldwide. Hovering in the background was the knowledge that the federal government would bail out troubled “too-big-to-fail” financial corporations, including Fannie and Freddie....
The Rise and Fall of Glass-Steagall
...The timing of the repeal of Glass-Steagall makes this deregulatory move a convenient scapegoat for the financial crisis. But the crisis began with the housing collapse, a result of government encouragement of unsound lending practices. Financial firms took too much risk with mortgage-backed securities, in part because of moral hazard engendered by government guarantees and partly because bond rating firms were not as independent as was once thought. The limited liability that the investment banks gained when they became corporations may also have amplified moral hazard. There is no good reason to believe that Glass-Steagall, had it remained in effect, would have prevented any of these problems....
Reinstating an Old Rule Is Not a Cure for Crisis
...But here’s the key: Glass-Steagall wouldn’t have prevented the last financial crisis. And it probably wouldn’t have prevented JPMorgan’s $2 billion-plus trading loss. The loss occurred on the commercial side of the bank, not at the investment bank. But parts of the bet were made with synthetic credit derivatives — something that George Bailey in “It’s a Wonderful Life” would never have touched.
When I called Ms. Warren and pressed her about whether she thought the financial crisis or JPMorgan’s losses could have been avoided if Glass-Steagall were in place, she conceded: “The answer is probably ‘No’ to both.”
Still, she said that the repeal of the law “had a powerful impact to let the big get bigger.” She also contended that its repeal, brought about by the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, “mattered enormously. It is like holding up a sign to regulators to back up.”...
...The first domino to nearly topple over in the financial crisis was Bear Stearns, an investment bank that had nothing to do with commercial banking. Glass-Steagall would have been irrelevant. Then came Lehman Brothers; it too was an investment bank with no commercial banking business and therefore wouldn’t have been covered by Glass-Steagall either. After them, Merrill Lynch was next — and yep, it too was an investment bank that had nothing to do with Glass-Steagall.
Next in line was the American International Group, an insurance company that was also unrelated to Glass-Steagall. While we’re at it, we should probably throw in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which similarly, had nothing to do with Glass-Steagall.
Now let’s look at the major commercial banks that ran into trouble.
Let’s first take Bank of America. Its biggest problems stemmed not from investment banking or trading — though there were some losses — but from its acquisition of Countrywide Financial, the subprime lender, which made a lot of bad loans — completely permissible under Glass-Steagall....
...One wonders if Warren et al. ever bother to look at the facts, particularly the passage of Glass-Steagall and what, if any, role the repeal actually played in the crisis. Since they never say anything specific, it’s hard to know if this is anything more than an incantation designed to blame the “free [sic] market” and to bolster their case for bureaucratic management of our lives (which they call “the economy”). It takes Herculean ignorance or dishonesty to claim that America had free banking before 2010. Hence, this is a classic confirmation of my observation that no matter how much the government controls the economic system, any problem will be blamed on whatever small zone of freedom remains....
...“Incidentally,” they write, “no other developed country has ever seen fit to separate commercial banking from investment banking. Banks in Germany and Switzerland have always been free to engage in underwriting and securities holding to no obvious harm.” Aren’t we often told that Europe is much more enlightened in such matters?...
Clinton’s Legacy: The Financial and Housing Meltdown ...The meltdown was the consequence of a combination of the easy money and low interest rates engineered by the Federal Reserve and the easy housing engineered by a variety of government agencies and policies. Those agencies include the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and two nominally private “government-sponsored enterprises” (GSEs), Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The agencies — along with laws such as the Community Reinvestment Act (passed in the 1970s, then fortified in the Clinton years), which required banks to make loans to people with poor and nonexistent credit histories — made widespread homeownership a national goal. This all led to a home-buying frenzy and an explosion of subprime and other non-prime mortgages, which banks and GSEs bundled into dubious securities and peddled to investors worldwide. Hovering in the background was the knowledge that the federal government would bail out troubled “too-big-to-fail” financial corporations, including Fannie and Freddie....
The Rise and Fall of Glass-Steagall
...The timing of the repeal of Glass-Steagall makes this deregulatory move a convenient scapegoat for the financial crisis. But the crisis began with the housing collapse, a result of government encouragement of unsound lending practices. Financial firms took too much risk with mortgage-backed securities, in part because of moral hazard engendered by government guarantees and partly because bond rating firms were not as independent as was once thought. The limited liability that the investment banks gained when they became corporations may also have amplified moral hazard. There is no good reason to believe that Glass-Steagall, had it remained in effect, would have prevented any of these problems....
Reinstating an Old Rule Is Not a Cure for Crisis
...But here’s the key: Glass-Steagall wouldn’t have prevented the last financial crisis. And it probably wouldn’t have prevented JPMorgan’s $2 billion-plus trading loss. The loss occurred on the commercial side of the bank, not at the investment bank. But parts of the bet were made with synthetic credit derivatives — something that George Bailey in “It’s a Wonderful Life” would never have touched.
When I called Ms. Warren and pressed her about whether she thought the financial crisis or JPMorgan’s losses could have been avoided if Glass-Steagall were in place, she conceded: “The answer is probably ‘No’ to both.”
Still, she said that the repeal of the law “had a powerful impact to let the big get bigger.” She also contended that its repeal, brought about by the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, “mattered enormously. It is like holding up a sign to regulators to back up.”...
...The first domino to nearly topple over in the financial crisis was Bear Stearns, an investment bank that had nothing to do with commercial banking. Glass-Steagall would have been irrelevant. Then came Lehman Brothers; it too was an investment bank with no commercial banking business and therefore wouldn’t have been covered by Glass-Steagall either. After them, Merrill Lynch was next — and yep, it too was an investment bank that had nothing to do with Glass-Steagall.
Next in line was the American International Group, an insurance company that was also unrelated to Glass-Steagall. While we’re at it, we should probably throw in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which similarly, had nothing to do with Glass-Steagall.
Now let’s look at the major commercial banks that ran into trouble.
Let’s first take Bank of America. Its biggest problems stemmed not from investment banking or trading — though there were some losses — but from its acquisition of Countrywide Financial, the subprime lender, which made a lot of bad loans — completely permissible under Glass-Steagall....
Saturday, October 12, 2013
Los Angeles school district wants teachers to wear pro-gay badges
...Because nothing deters bullies like having their victims’ specialness publicly praised by authority figures, the L.A. Gay and Lesbian Center applauded the school district for its “groundbreaking” work in applauding gay students....
...Because nothing deters bullies like having their victims’ specialness publicly praised by authority figures, the L.A. Gay and Lesbian Center applauded the school district for its “groundbreaking” work in applauding gay students....
Gowdy to National Park Service: Why block out vets and not ‘Occupy’ protestors?
South Carolina Republican Rep. Trey Gowdy is reviving the National Park Service’s limited enforcement of regulations during last year’s “Occupy” protest in McPherson Square to press the agency on its shutdown protocols.
In a letter to NPS Director Jonathan Jarvis, Friday Gowdy called on the agency to provide a legal justification for closing the World War II Memorial to veterans in light of he government shut down while still allowing an immigration rally on the National Mall.
“I am concerned about recent reports of the National Park Service’s (NPS) selective enforcement of policy and regulations in the name of the First Amendment,” Gowdy wrote. “Reminiscent of last year’s lack of enforcement of camping in McPherson Square, the NPS justified special accommodations for a rally on the National Mall attended by Democratic Members of Congress based on First Amendment interpretations.”
“However, World War II veterans faced government barriers when attempting to visit a memorial commemorating their service,” he wrote....
South Carolina Republican Rep. Trey Gowdy is reviving the National Park Service’s limited enforcement of regulations during last year’s “Occupy” protest in McPherson Square to press the agency on its shutdown protocols.
In a letter to NPS Director Jonathan Jarvis, Friday Gowdy called on the agency to provide a legal justification for closing the World War II Memorial to veterans in light of he government shut down while still allowing an immigration rally on the National Mall.
“I am concerned about recent reports of the National Park Service’s (NPS) selective enforcement of policy and regulations in the name of the First Amendment,” Gowdy wrote. “Reminiscent of last year’s lack of enforcement of camping in McPherson Square, the NPS justified special accommodations for a rally on the National Mall attended by Democratic Members of Congress based on First Amendment interpretations.”
“However, World War II veterans faced government barriers when attempting to visit a memorial commemorating their service,” he wrote....
What Fresh Hell Is This?
...They set up a straw man on the other side of the debate as well. The article opens with the "concession" that "the Affordable Care Act isn't perfect. . . . Like most laws, Obamacare never will be perfect." (That "most" is a nice touch. One wonders if they have an example in mind of a law that is perfect.) But we don't recall anyone promising that ObamaCare would be perfect. What Obama and his backers promised was that it would be very, very good--that it would provide "universal" (or nearly so) coverage while reducing costs and maintaining or improving the quality of medical care.
Now, however, Wing and Young dramatically scale back that promise, describing ObamaCare as an "ambitious reform effort meant to make a dent in the nearly 50 million Americans who currently lack health insurance." Again, that's a contradiction in terms: It was in fact "ambitious," but it would not have been so if it meant only to "make a dent."
This is all by way of setting a very low standard for evaluating ObamaCare, one that will ensure it will be judged a "success" as long as it doesn't destroy America. But the meat of the article is actually an indictment of ObamaCare, at least if one applies a reasonable standard of asking whether on balance it is a good piece of legislation. Here are the "concerns" even these ObamaCare enthusiasts deem "valid":...
...Suppose Congress had enacted the individual mandate, as construed by the chief justice, as stand-alone legislation. That is, suppose we had a law imposing a punitive tax on uninsured individuals without any provision to help people get insurance. It seems patently unfair and constitutionally at least dubious to tax people for a "condition"--being uninsured--that is in many cases beyond their control.
Yet in practical terms that is exactly what ObamaCare will turn out to be if the exchanges aren't made to work within a matter of weeks. That suggests grounds for a new legal challenge to the individual mandate one that--OK, call us a cockeyed optimist--could give the chief justice an opportunity to undo his mistake....
...They set up a straw man on the other side of the debate as well. The article opens with the "concession" that "the Affordable Care Act isn't perfect. . . . Like most laws, Obamacare never will be perfect." (That "most" is a nice touch. One wonders if they have an example in mind of a law that is perfect.) But we don't recall anyone promising that ObamaCare would be perfect. What Obama and his backers promised was that it would be very, very good--that it would provide "universal" (or nearly so) coverage while reducing costs and maintaining or improving the quality of medical care.
Now, however, Wing and Young dramatically scale back that promise, describing ObamaCare as an "ambitious reform effort meant to make a dent in the nearly 50 million Americans who currently lack health insurance." Again, that's a contradiction in terms: It was in fact "ambitious," but it would not have been so if it meant only to "make a dent."
This is all by way of setting a very low standard for evaluating ObamaCare, one that will ensure it will be judged a "success" as long as it doesn't destroy America. But the meat of the article is actually an indictment of ObamaCare, at least if one applies a reasonable standard of asking whether on balance it is a good piece of legislation. Here are the "concerns" even these ObamaCare enthusiasts deem "valid":...
...Suppose Congress had enacted the individual mandate, as construed by the chief justice, as stand-alone legislation. That is, suppose we had a law imposing a punitive tax on uninsured individuals without any provision to help people get insurance. It seems patently unfair and constitutionally at least dubious to tax people for a "condition"--being uninsured--that is in many cases beyond their control.
Yet in practical terms that is exactly what ObamaCare will turn out to be if the exchanges aren't made to work within a matter of weeks. That suggests grounds for a new legal challenge to the individual mandate one that--OK, call us a cockeyed optimist--could give the chief justice an opportunity to undo his mistake....
U.S. Opens Spigot After Farmers Claim Discrimination
... Ever since the Clinton administration agreed in 1999 to make $50,000 payments to thousands of black farmers, the Hispanics and women had been clamoring in courtrooms and in Congress for the same deal. They argued, as the African-Americans had, that biased federal loan officers had systematically thwarted their attempts to borrow money to farm.
But a succession of courts — and finally the Supreme Court — had rebuffed their pleas. Instead of an army of potential claimants, the government faced just 91 plaintiffs. Those cases, the government lawyers figured, could be dispatched at limited cost.
They were wrong.
On the heels of the Supreme Court’s ruling, interviews and records show, the Obama administration’s political appointees at the Justice and Agriculture Departments engineered a stunning turnabout: they committed $1.33 billion to compensate not just the 91 plaintiffs but thousands of Hispanic and female farmers who had never claimed bias in court.
The deal, several current and former government officials said, was fashioned in White House meetings despite the vehement objections — until now undisclosed — of career lawyers and agency officials who had argued that there was no credible evidence of widespread discrimination. What is more, some protested, the template for the deal — the $50,000 payouts to black farmers — had proved a magnet for fraud....
How a Discrimination Settlement Turned into a Bonanza for Fraudsters
...Long story short: black farmers complained that they had been discriminated against when seeking loans from a USDA program. Those loans are supposed to help farmers buy seed and fertilizer, and float the long period between sowing and harvest. They sued the Clinton administration, which settled even before they'd opened the discovery process. This is known as the Pigford settlement, a name which will be familiar to readers of conservative news sites, which have been on this case for some time.
The New York Times reports that the judge initially restricted the settlement to people who had actually been farming during the period covered by the settlement, but some people complained. What about people who had attempted to farm, but been stymied by their inability to procure government loans? Should they be shut out of the settlement? So the judge expanded the criteria to include people who'd attempted to farm. Unfortunately, the government doesn't keep track of people who have maybe thought about farming. And apparently, it didn't have decades worth of records of the loans they'd denied. So the government was forced to rely on the word of the applicants....
How Did Progressive Journalists Get Pigford So Wrong?
...Yet even the progressive writers whose work I find most careful, accurate and valuable got this story wrong in important ways. Adam Serwer took time to dig into Pigford and provided some useful correctives (and some critiques with which I disagree) to conservative coverage, but also wrote, in one particularly uncharitable post, "the pervasiveness of conservative anger over the Pigford settlement augurs a new low for conservative anti-anti-racism, in which remedying an exhaustively documented instance of racial discrimination is objectionable not because the claim itself is illegitimate but because it represents a transfer of income from whites to nonwhites."
In fact, the vast majority of conservatives were upset by the widespread fraud, the perception that cynical racial politics helped enable it, and the related fact that hucksters were exploiting a widespread desire to redress discrimination by stealing from all taxpayers, nonwhite ones very much included....
...Said a UC Berkeley professor who studied the matter in great depth, "I was so disgusted. It was simply buying the support of the Native Americans." How can Drum not understand, after all that, why the Agriculture Department didn't adopt stricter standards? It's as if progressives writing about Pigford are blind to the fact that plaintiffs' lawyers and identity-based interest groups exert influence in politics just like corporate interest groups, industry interest groups, defense contractors, and every other constituency that participates in lobbying the U.S. government. Not all claims of cynical racial politics are bogeymen dreamed up by bigoted conservatives....
... Ever since the Clinton administration agreed in 1999 to make $50,000 payments to thousands of black farmers, the Hispanics and women had been clamoring in courtrooms and in Congress for the same deal. They argued, as the African-Americans had, that biased federal loan officers had systematically thwarted their attempts to borrow money to farm.
But a succession of courts — and finally the Supreme Court — had rebuffed their pleas. Instead of an army of potential claimants, the government faced just 91 plaintiffs. Those cases, the government lawyers figured, could be dispatched at limited cost.
They were wrong.
On the heels of the Supreme Court’s ruling, interviews and records show, the Obama administration’s political appointees at the Justice and Agriculture Departments engineered a stunning turnabout: they committed $1.33 billion to compensate not just the 91 plaintiffs but thousands of Hispanic and female farmers who had never claimed bias in court.
The deal, several current and former government officials said, was fashioned in White House meetings despite the vehement objections — until now undisclosed — of career lawyers and agency officials who had argued that there was no credible evidence of widespread discrimination. What is more, some protested, the template for the deal — the $50,000 payouts to black farmers — had proved a magnet for fraud....
How a Discrimination Settlement Turned into a Bonanza for Fraudsters
...Long story short: black farmers complained that they had been discriminated against when seeking loans from a USDA program. Those loans are supposed to help farmers buy seed and fertilizer, and float the long period between sowing and harvest. They sued the Clinton administration, which settled even before they'd opened the discovery process. This is known as the Pigford settlement, a name which will be familiar to readers of conservative news sites, which have been on this case for some time.
The New York Times reports that the judge initially restricted the settlement to people who had actually been farming during the period covered by the settlement, but some people complained. What about people who had attempted to farm, but been stymied by their inability to procure government loans? Should they be shut out of the settlement? So the judge expanded the criteria to include people who'd attempted to farm. Unfortunately, the government doesn't keep track of people who have maybe thought about farming. And apparently, it didn't have decades worth of records of the loans they'd denied. So the government was forced to rely on the word of the applicants....
How Did Progressive Journalists Get Pigford So Wrong?
...Yet even the progressive writers whose work I find most careful, accurate and valuable got this story wrong in important ways. Adam Serwer took time to dig into Pigford and provided some useful correctives (and some critiques with which I disagree) to conservative coverage, but also wrote, in one particularly uncharitable post, "the pervasiveness of conservative anger over the Pigford settlement augurs a new low for conservative anti-anti-racism, in which remedying an exhaustively documented instance of racial discrimination is objectionable not because the claim itself is illegitimate but because it represents a transfer of income from whites to nonwhites."
In fact, the vast majority of conservatives were upset by the widespread fraud, the perception that cynical racial politics helped enable it, and the related fact that hucksters were exploiting a widespread desire to redress discrimination by stealing from all taxpayers, nonwhite ones very much included....
...Said a UC Berkeley professor who studied the matter in great depth, "I was so disgusted. It was simply buying the support of the Native Americans." How can Drum not understand, after all that, why the Agriculture Department didn't adopt stricter standards? It's as if progressives writing about Pigford are blind to the fact that plaintiffs' lawyers and identity-based interest groups exert influence in politics just like corporate interest groups, industry interest groups, defense contractors, and every other constituency that participates in lobbying the U.S. government. Not all claims of cynical racial politics are bogeymen dreamed up by bigoted conservatives....
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