Sunday Funnies (Beware Bad Dogma edition)

When banks rob people

This time the banks are zeroing in on Geithner's cash giveaway bonanza, the "Public Private Investment Partnership" (PPIP). As expected, Bank of America and Citigroup have angled their way to the front of the herd, thrusting their snouts into the public trough and extracting whatever morsels they can find amid a din of gurgling and sucking sounds. Here's the story from the New York Post:

"As Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner orchestrated a plan to help the nation's largest banks purge themselves of toxic mortgage assets, Citigroup and Bank of America have been aggressively scooping up those same securities in the secondary market, sources told The Post...

But the banks' purchase of so-called AAA-rated mortgage-backed securities, including some that use alt-A and option ARM as collateral, is raising eyebrows among even the most seasoned traders. Alt-A and option ARM loans have widely been seen as the next mortgage type to see increases in defaults.

One Wall Street trader told The Post that what's been most puzzling about the purchases is how aggressive both banks have been in their buying, sometimes paying higher prices than competing bidders are willing to pay.

Recently, securities rated AAA have changed hands for roughly 30 cents on the dollar, and most of the buyers have been hedge funds acting opportunistically on a bet that prices will rise over time. However, sources said Citi and BofA have trumped those bids."("Double Dippers; Citi and B of A buy laundered loans at lower rates", Mark DeCambre, New York Post)

Thus begins the next taxpayer-subsidized feeding frenzy, featuring all the usual suspects. The race is on to vacuum up as much toxic mortgage paper as possible so it can be dumped on Uncle Sam at a hefty profit. These are the same miscreants the Obama administration is so dead-set on rescuing. Better to let them sink from their own bad bets.

More here.

Harris County's plan for voter registration

I like the sound of this, so let's keep an eye out for how effectively it is implemented:

County Tax Assessor-Collector Leo Vasquez has put together a coalition of private organizations and large employers to make sure that residents who move within or to the county get an on-the-spot chance to fill out fresh voter registration applications.

Moving into an apartment or buying a dwelling involves signing lots of papers. Now the Houston Apartment Association and the Texas Land Title Association will make sure the papers include voter registration forms, Vasquez said Wednesday.

Continental Airlines and the Houston Independent School District are the first employers to join the coalition by ensuring that registration forms go to workers who update their personnel records with new addresses.

“Let’s hit people when they are trying to make one of those moves,” said Vasquez, who was appointed in December to succeed fellow Republican Paul Bettencourt, who resigned from his elected post.

Some poor word choices there, Leo, but the effort seems to be well-directed:

Vasquez said he created the voter registration coalition without regard to such controversies. He also said he does not plan to play a partisan role.

Registered voters who move without updating their registrations can, in most cases, vote on Election Day at the polling place for the precinct where they formerly lived. With the rise of early voting participation, where voters live within the county matters less because they can vote at any early voting station.

Having to return to an old neighborhood to vote sometimes discourages voters from casting ballots, Vasquez pointed out, so updated registrations make participation easier.

Vasquez also hopes the program will make the volume of voter registrations more consistent through the year. Typically, address changes and other registrations peak a few weeks before each election. These spikes lead to last-minute errors by those who fill out the cards and a processing backlog at the voter registrars’ office, according to Vasquez.

Fair enough. Let's see how it goes.

John Hope Franklin 1915 - 2009

As an author, his book ''From Slavery to Freedom'' was a landmark integration of black history into American history that remains relevant more than 60 years after being published. As a scholar, his research helped Thurgood Marshall and his team at the NAACP win Brown v. Board of Education, the 1954 case that barred the doctrine of ''separate but equal'' in the nation's public schools.

''It was evident how much the lawyers appreciated what the historians could offer,'' Franklin later wrote. ''For me, and I suspect the same was true for the others, it was exhilarating.''

Franklin himself broke numerous color barriers. He was the first black department chair at a predominantly white institution, Brooklyn College; the first black professor to hold an endowed chair at Duke; and the first black president of the American Historical Association.

He often regarded his country like an exasperated relative, frustrated by racism's stubborn power, yet refusing to give up. ''I want to be out there on the firing line, helping, directing or doing something to try to make this a better world, a better place to live,'' Franklin told The Associated Press in 2005.

In November, after Barack Obama broke the ultimate racial barrier in American politics, Franklin called his ascension to the White House ''one of the most historic moments, if not the most historic moment, in the history of this country.''

''Because of the life John Hope Franklin lived, the public service he rendered, and the scholarship that was the mark of his distinguished career, we all have a richer understanding of who we are as Americans and our journey as a people,'' Obama said in a statement. ''Dr. Franklin will be deeply missed, but his legacy is one that will surely endure.''

More bad newspaper news

-- The Houston Chronicle canned 12% of its staff yesterday (and today), including Clay Robison in the Austin bureau and Richard Stewart, whose East Texas columns I've read for thirty years, going back to when he wrote them in the Beaumont Enterprise-Journal. Hair Balls and Banjo Jones have more.

It looks like Steve Swartz is really determined to earn a bonus in his first year.

-- There is no longer a newspaper in Ann Arbor and three other small Michigan cities.

-- Gannett is furloughing employees and cutting pay rather than go through another round of layoffs -- for the time being:

The pall looming over U.S. newspapers grew even darker Monday as Gannett Co. informed most of its employees that they will have to take another week of unpaid leave this spring, while a Michigan daily unveiled plans to close its print edition after 174 years.

And The Plain Dealer, Ohio's largest newspaper, also ordered pay cuts and 10-day furloughs for nonunion employees Monday to cut costs as advertising revenue drops.

The moves were just the latest sign of the distress afflicting newspapers across the country as they try to cope with a dramatic shift in advertising that is forcing publishers to figure out how to survive with substantially less revenue.

Signaling it doesn't see an upturn anytime soon, Gannett wants virtually all of its U.S. employees to stay at home and forgo at least one week's pay before July. About 6,600 workers outside the United States won't be affected by the furloughs.

Executives and many workers making more than $90,000 annually will sacrifice two weeks pay in hopes that Gannett _ the owner of USA Today and more than 80 daily newspapers _ will be able to avoid more layoffs after jettisoning 4,000 jobs last year.

This will mark Gannett's second round of furloughs this year. The company, which employs about 41,500 people, saved about $20 million by imposing one-week furloughs during the first three months of this year.

No end in sight.

Update: The NYT and the WaPo as well ...

Two of the most respected U.S. newspaper publishers, The Washington Post Co and The New York Times Co, are embarking on new cost cuts in the face of dramatic declines in advertising revenue.

The Times said it laid off 100 workers and is cutting non-union salaries. It is also asking unionized employees to accept similar concessions to avoid layoffs in the newsroom.

The Post is offering a new round of buyouts to newsroom, production and circulation employees, and said it could not rule out laying off staff.

"This was a very difficult decision to make," said a memo signed by Times Chairman Arthur Sulzberger Jr. and Chief Executive Janet Robinson. "The environment we are in is the toughest we have seen in our years in business."

The moves come as a host of other U.S. newspaper publishers have reduced staff, declared bankruptcy or shuttered once-vaunted newspapers, as readers seek news online and elsewhere and as the recession crimps advertising spending.

GOP predicts "doomsday" if Obama budget passed

They really did use the word "doomsday".

Well, actually they said 'this country will go bankrupt' and 'fast road to ruin'; our liberal media translated that as "doomsday".

Where were Judd Gregg and Richard Shelby when Bush was spending $4 trillion on wars in Iraq and Afghanistan? In the Senate heartily voting 'aye', of course.

Anyway, this is a repeat of 1993, and does anyone remember what kind of economy we got after the Republicans finished whining and the United States finally got a budget?

Then I don't suppose anyone can recall that Clinton's '93 budget, which raised taxes, reduced the federal deficit significantly either.

Seriously though, let's allay their deficit concerns and raise taxes on the wealthiest 5% NOW, instead of 2011.

"Heavens to Murgatroyd! That would be Socialism!"

Continuing to provide a forum -- some would say, 'outlet' -- for the bleatings of the naysayers isn't quite as stupid as ascribing drops in the Dow to the president speaking -- indeed, lying about it --or writing an article about the Employee Free Choice Act without ever seeking a comment from a representative of labor.

If we're going to play 'point/counterpoint or 'tit-for-tat' then it needs to be a two-way-street all the time.

The Weekly Sweet Sixteen Wrangle

With the arrival of spring, a legislative session in Austin, municipal campaigns revving up around the state and Texas' primaries less than a year away, the blogs of the Texas Progressive Alliance continue to bring you insights from our members around the state. Here's a roundup of what we've been reporting:

The Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas is now saying that the economic downturn has landed full force in Texas. Spared from the worst job losses during the first 6 months of the current recession, Texas is shedding jobs at an alarming pace. Wcnews at Eye On Williamson looks at the trends and offers a sobering assessment of the hard-line-let-'em-crash mentality of Gov. Rick Perry and the Texas GOP.

Off the Kuff points to a bill by state Rep. Dwayne Bohac to demonstrate that the push for voter ID really is about vote suppression.

If Republicans really cared about election integrity, then why do we still have non-auditable electronic voting machines? CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme wants to know.

BossKitty at TruthHugger sees an opportunity to get a degree in the dark arts in If Texas HB-2800 Passes, I Want A Masters Degree In VooDoo.

In a post that took some work and came out well, Neil at Texas Liberal wrote about what Google searches miss. Also, Neil read the bird sermon of St. Francis to a dancing duck chicken.

John Coby at Bay Area Houston writes about Why Ethics Reform is Needed in Texas.

The Texas Cloverleaf looks at a few local Twits in the GOP. Twittering Republicans, that is.

Over at TexasKaos, Libby Shaw tells us that in Hutchinson's world, "It's All About Me". So she is going to run for governor, keep her Senate seat and give the people of Texas absentee representation. Whatever makes her happy. Heaven forbid she should put her constituents first.

WhosPlayin examined HB 4441, an attempt by Rep. Yvonne Gonzalez Toureilles to solve some problems related to pipelines.

nytexan at BlueBloggin is stunned that Obama Taps CitiGroup Economist For Treasury Spot. So, how does Washington's logic work? They offer a job, at the Treasury Department, to Lewis Alexander of CitiGroup. The Global Marketing Division that Alexander heads up was just fined $2 million by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) for trade-reporting violations, including publishing flawed quotations. Let me know how that works out for you!

Xanthippas at Three Wise Men has some thoughts on the goals of American foreign policy, and is wondering if the war in Afghanistan is winnable, at least as we appear to be defining victory.

Molly Ivins warned us years ago about AIG, "too big to fail", and Phil Gramm. So says PDiddie at Brains and Eggs.

McBlogger takes a look at the valuations being placed on the evil CDO's. Lots of laughs, of course, follow.

Sunday Spring has Sproing Funnies

Mudbug, brewdogs, and college basketball

The order of the day. In alternating importance. Appropriate self-indulgence should include a dash of schadenfreude at the plight of the Right these days, though:

-- The conservative hypocrisy reaches dizzying new heights with each passing week. If it's not Rush Limbaugh then it's Glenn Beck or Jim Cramer; if it isn't John Cornyn then it's Eric Cantor. This week, it's Sarah Palin following on the heels of Rick Perry, Mark Sanford, and Piyush Jindal in rejecting large portions of the federal stimulus funds apportioned for their respective states. From the Anchrage Daily News (emphasis is mine):

The biggest single chunk of money that Palin is turning down is about $170 million for education, including money that would go for programs to help economically disadvantaged and special needs students. Anchorage School Superintendent Carol Comeau said she is "shocked and very disappointed" that Palin would reject the schools money. She said it could be used for job preservation, teacher training, and helping kids who need it. ...

Sarah Palin, you may recall, has a special needs child of her own. And during the presidential campaign last year, she pointedly claimed that special-needs children would have an advocate in the White House.

But snce she didn't make it to Washington, I suppose that doesn't apply any more.

Acting Anchorage Mayor Matt Claman said he's disappointed Palin chose to turn down funding that would create jobs and maintain services. "Her rationale is like turning down a gift card because it expires in two years," Claman said in a written statement.

Palin is turning down money for weatherization, energy efficiency grants, immunizations, air quality grants, emergency food assistance, homeless grants, senior meals, child care development grants, nutrition programs, homeless grants, arts, unemployment services, air quality, justice assistance grants and other programs.

No surprise that Palin -- along with Governors Sanford and Jindal -- are whispered as aspirants for the Republican 2012 prez nom:

It's probably not a coincidence that each of the Republican governors who have showboated taken public stands on not accepting federal stimulus money are thought to be contenders for a future GOP presidential run. It's also true that the state legislatures in each of the states are able to overturn the governors decision.

Which, of course, would be the best of all worlds for these governors. They would get the Rush LImbaugh butt-kissing bonus points for claiming they will refuse the funds and later be able to claim the state legislatures overruled them. And everything worked out happily ever after.

Remind me again ...what was one of the conservative poutrages this week? Oh yeah, Obama said "Special Olympics" on Leno.

-- AIG bonuses ruled the airwaves all week long, but the GOP got confused over which direction they were supposed to scream about them. 87 of 172 House Republicans voted to tax the bonuses at 90%, but senators on the Right plan to slow-walk the legislation until the furor dies down. Very conflicting decision for the welfare-only-for-corporations representatives in the Congress.

-- Norm Coleman's lawyer says "I'm done":

According to a transcript of a radio appearance this week by former Senator Norm Coleman's attorney, Joe Friedberg, the Republican will most likely lose his election contest against Al Franken for the U.S. Senate seat in Minnesota.

Hotline's Jennifer Skalka quotes Friedberg as conceding that Coleman will "probably" lose when the 3-judge panel currently deliberating the case, which both sides rested last week, announce their verdict.

"I think it's probably correct that Franken will still be ahead and probably by a little bit more," Friedberg admitted, after announcing that he was "done" with the case.

Senator Al Franken will be seated as soon as the court issues its ruling. Suck on that, John Cornyn.

Molly Ivins warned us about AIG

More specifically, about Phil Gramm:

October 26, 1999

AUSTIN, Texas — I feel vaguely like Henry Higgins in "My Fair Lady," announcing with gleefully inhumane relish: "She'll regret it, she'll regret it! Ha!"

"I can see her now, Mrs. Freddy Eynsford-Hill, in a wretched little flat above the store!

"I can see her now, not a penny in the till, and the bill collectors knocking at the door!"

Which is to say, the new banking bill is a thoroughly lousy idea, and the party most likely to regret it is us.

The 1999 Gramm-Leach Act is about to replace the 1933 Glass-Steagall Act, with the result that bankers, brokers and insurance companies can all get into one another's business. It's a done deal except for the final vote on the conference-committee agreement. The inevitable result will be a wave of mergers creating gigantic financial entities.

"Too Big to Fail" will be the new order of the day. And guess who gets left holding the bag when they're too big to fail? One of these monsters goes down, and it will cost as much as the whole S&L debacle.

And Molly also warned us about Gramm's Commodity Futures Trading Act, a 262-page amendment which he slipped into an omnibus appropriations bill moving toward passage as Congress was preparing to head home for the Christmas recess in 2000.

December 24, 2000

Just before it left town last week, Congress passed a little horror called the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000, brought to us courtesy of heavy lobbying by Wall Street banks and investment brokers.

Frank Portnoy, writing in The New York Times, describes the bill thusly: "First, it lifts a long-standing ban on futures trading in individual stocks, thus allowing investors to buy shares through brokers with very little money down. Second, it protects a lucrative business for bankers — the private financial contracts known as swaps — from being regulated. ... Investors are affected by swaps because they are ... used by many mutual funds and publicly traded companies."

*heavy sigh*

Third Appeals insists 'funds' aren't checks

This has to do with Tom Delay protectorates David Puryear and Alan Waldrop, whose sordid tales of corruption have been detailed previously. Harvey Kronberg, his emphasis:

In a 3-2 ruling (yesterday), Republican Justices Pemberton, Puryear and Waldrop prevailed over Democratic Justices Patterson and Henson.

At issue was whether or not to have the full Court of Appeals rehear a controversial decision late last year that ruled, among other things, that the Texas money laundering statute was unconstitutionally vague. Their argument was the statute used the term "funds" rather than "check"

Defendants John Colyandro and Jim Ellis have been in the soup because of their role in an alleged money laundering scheme in former Majority Tom DeLay's Texans for a Republican Majority. They were accused of sending unusable corporate contributions (illegal in Texas) to the Republican National Committee in DC and having identical amounts routed back as sanitized dollars.

After ignoring prosecutors request for an expedited review and sitting on the case for nearly three years, a three judge panel last year broke along party lines and raised questions about the legitimacy of the indictment.

In a scathing dissent, Democrat Justice Patterson pointed to last minute changes in court procedure and expressed amazement that the court resolved issues not before it -- like the vagueness of the money laundering statute.

Capitol Annex links to Patterson's dissent, and adds:

Perhaps the most interesting thing about the Court’s opinion is that it --until overruled -- sets a precedent under which the state district courts in the 24-county region that makes up the Third Court of Appeals District could throw out all money laundering convictions involving checks prior to the 2005 law change since the court has construed the meaning of “funds” not to include checks for the purpose of Texas’ money laundering statute prior to 2005.

That's worth repeating: corporate political contributions made by check -- laundered specifically to evade the law in Texas -- don't meet the definition of the word "funds", as defined by the three GOP judges on the Third Court of Appeals.

Presumably this case will now go to the Texas Supreme Court -- where Republicans have a 9-0 "majority".

Stanford Financial and Ben Barnes -- and the big picture

Truly remarkable how he is connected to all these scandals:

From the Sharpstown banking fraud that ended his political career to the current financial collapse of his lobby client Stanford Financial Group, former Texas Lt. Gov. Ben Barnes has played a constant character on the stage of state and national scandals. ...

Most recently, Barnes surfaced when the Securities and Exchange Commission last month filed a fraud lawsuit against his client Stanford Financial Group and its founder R. Allen Stanford. When Stanford was missing, Barnes was the person who confirmed that he had been served with the lawsuit.

Barnes’ lobby firm earned $1.8 million representing Stanford Financial between 2002 and 2008, working issues ranging from federal regulation of offshore banks to tax codes for the U.S. Virgin Islands. Barnes was surprised by the company’s collapse.

“It’s hard to believe. Our firm wasn’t hired to look at the books or do anything with the business,” Barnes said.

Over the years, Barnes has been associated with the 1971 Sharpstown scandal, the collapse of his real estate business with former Gov. John Connally, the GTECH lobbying controversy at the Texas lottery, and (Dan) Rather’s 60 Minutes report in 2004 on President George W. Bush’s service in the Texas Air National Guard.

Did you know that Barnes was once labeled the "51st senator" by Tom Daschle? I didn't:

Barnes is one of the top money-raisers for Democratic U.S. senators. He and his wife, Melanie, personally gave more than $600,000 to federal Democratic candidates and committees since 2004. Barnes last month donated $1 million to the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas.

When the U.S. Senate was evenly divided early in this decade, then-Majority Leader Tom Daschle called Barnes the “51st senator.”

Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Chairman Sen. Chuck Schumer at a New York luncheon for 250 committee donors last year singled out only two fund-raisers with exceptional praise. Barnes was one.

The clients Barnes has represented before Congress have paid his firm $24 million since 1999. They include:

• Texas top trial lawyers John Eddie Williams of Houston, Wayne Reaud of Beaumont and Harold Nix of Daingerfield.

• Ruth Parasol, an Internet gambling entrepreneur from California who first made a fortune off of Internet pornography, earning her the nickname of “Princess of Porn” in the British press.

• GloFish, an Austin company that markets genetically altered tropical fish that glow in the dark.

• The Huntsman Cancer Institute in Utah for which Barnes says he obtained a $100 million appropriation for cancer research.

• Moynihan Station Developer LLC, a company renovating New York’s Penn Station, tearing down Madison Square Gardens and renovating 16 blocks of Manhattan.

Financial corruption -- or at least his nearly constant association with those who are financially corrupt -- has been a hallmark of Ben Barnes' life.

If the Democratic party wants to avoid traveling down the same path as the Republicans, it needs to end its association with Barnes and his ilk.

(Yes, I hear the peals of laughter.)