Switzerland investigating bank rate-fixing abuses

Sigh. Why is it that in the US, the authorities keep handing out immunity and sweetheart deals that neither accept or deny guilt? As it relates to this Swiss investigation, UBS did receive conditional immunity last summer from the US Justice Department. It remains unfair that despite the complete disaster left behind by the big banks, they continue to find life easy compared to everyone else. The SEC and Justice Department are seemingly much too concerned about campaign contributions from the big spenders or job futures to care about tackling the problem. There will always be talk of action in the US about the banking abuses but it's doubtful that will ever translate into actual action. Bloomberg:

UBS AG (UBSN) and Credit Suisse Group AG (CSGN) are among 12 banks facing a Swiss inquest into possible manipulation of the London interbank offered rate, the latest probe into how the benchmark for $350 trillion of financial products is set. “Collusion between derivative traders might have influenced” Libor and its Japanese equivalent, Tibor, the Swiss competition watchdog, Comco, said in an e-mailed statement today. “Market conditions regarding derivative products based on these reference rates might have been manipulated too.” Comco said it opened the investigation after receiving an application for its “leniency program,” which indicated that traders from various banks might have influenced the rate. Libor is set daily by the British Bankers’ Association based on data from banks, which report how much it would cost them to borrow from each other for various periods of time. Regulators in the U.S., U.K. and European Union have been examining how Libor is set, while Japan’s securities watchdog has probed Tibor.

And remember, Wall Street is making a renewed effort to push back against the foggy area of derivatives. Many blame this unregulated business for significantly contributing to the 2008 crash. Read the rest of this post...

Massive anti-Putin protest in freezing Moscow

It took courage to join the initial anti-protests and now it takes courage to get out there on the streets during the Russian winter. The Guardian:

Tens of thousands of anti-government demonstrators are marching through Moscow and other Russian cities in protest at Vladimir Putin's grip on power. Thousands of Putin supporters are also staging a rally in the capital a month before the presidential election that the prime minister is expected to win, putting him in power for six more years. The rival demonstrators were undeterred by the freezing temperatures, which have plunged as low as -20C, with opposition leaders saying that up to 100,000 people had joined the protest in Moscow on Saturday.

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Bill Maher un-baptizes Mitt Romney’s dead father-in-law, un-Mormons him

Bill Maher unbaptized Mitt Romney's dead father-in-law this week.

He did this because the Mormons have a long track record of baptizing the dead without their consent (i.e., without anything in their will or dying wishes), and even without the consent of their immediate families. For example, the Mormons secretly baptized President Obama's late mother right before the 2008 election, and the President and his family had no idea (John got the scoop on that story). There's a very real chance that you, or a loved one, could become Mormon after you cease to exist.

I credit the unnamed writers who wrote this piece. Do enjoy.



First-class comedy-writing genius, say I.

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PBS NewsHour: Questions linger about Komen’s commitment to Planned Parenthood

Ya think? The NewsHouse delves into the points I made yesterday.  Namely, that Komen didn't "fix" all the reasons it said it wasn't going to fund Planned Parenthood breast exams in the future.  And in fact, on Friday night, after Komen had already "apologized" for the brouhaha, Komen again left the door open to shutting down Planned Parenthood grants, according to the NewsHour.

Komen is still playing games.  Which makes sense, since who do they have on their payroll as a media consultant, none of than Bush spokesman Ari Fleischer.  Fleischer and Komen CEO Nancy Brinker go way back in GOP politics, since Komen is a multi-hundred thousand dollar donor to the GOP and a former Bush political appointee.  So it's no wonder that Komen issues an "apology" that seems to be no apology at all.

Note this paragraph buried in their "apology," that I didn't even really notice until a friend pointed it out later. It seethes with condescension and contempt:

It is our hope and we believe it is time for everyone involved to pause, slow down and reflect on how grants can most effectively and directly be administered without controversies that hurt the cause of women. We urge everyone who has participated in this conversation across the country over the last few days to help us move past this issue. We do not want our mission marred or affected by politics -- anyone's politics. [emphasis added]

"Slow down"? Is that like "calm down" - something a controlling man tells an "emotional" woman? Note that Komen talks of the need to "directly" administer grants. That seems to be code for the newest reason they claim they shut down the PPFA grants, because some of them were pass-through grants. Sounds like Komen is leaving the door open to shutting PPFA down again. But here's my favorite line:

We do not want our mission marred or affected by politics -- anyone's politics. [emphasis added]

Anyone's politics?  Excuse me? Implying that it was Komen's critics who injected politics into all of this? Classic blaming the victim.  Another favorite trick men like to pull on the women they step on.  (Just who wrote this press release?  Fleischer himself? Brinker? It sure reads like the typical Republican "I blame you for what I'm actually doing" mind game.)  The only one who injected politics into this discussion was Komen, home of far too many conservative Republican anti-choice activists. Now Komen has the nerve to lecture women who are concerned about breast cancer funding that THOSE WOMEN are the ones who injected politics into this discussion.

This "apology" seethes with contempt.  Komen did a good job defusing the crisis yesterday, but please don't confuse that with fixing the problem, because they haven't.  I don't know about you, but the Race for the Cure is damaged beyond repair in my eyes.  I don't donate to pro-life organizations.  Is Komen a pro-life organization?  Komen will answer that question for us, through their own words and actions.  And so far, I'm not liking what I've seen.  Have you? Read the rest of this post...

Anonymous intercepts FBI-Scotland Yard call

And we're putting our trust in the FBI to keep the country safe? It should make many wonder about the quality of their work, not to mention the amount of leeway they are given to make decisions on about our personal freedoms.

Trading jokes and swapping leads, investigators from the FBI and Scotland Yard spent the conference call strategizing about how to bring down the hacking collective known as Anonymous, responsible for a string of embarrassing attacks across the Internet. Unfortunately for the cyber sleuths, the hackers were in on the call too — and now so is the rest of the world. Anonymous published the roughly 15-minute-long recording of the call on the Internet on Friday, gloating in a Twitter message that "the FBI might be curious how we're able to continuously read their internal comms for some time now."

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"Welcome to Cancerland" — or What does Komen do with all that money?

Credit Rick Perlstein (via Twitter) for this great find.

In Harper's Magazine, November 2001, the great Barbara Ehrenreich writes (my emphasis and paragraphing):

Today [breast cancer is] the biggest disease on the cultural map, bigger than AIDS, cystic fibrosis, or spinal injury, bigger even than those more prolific killers of women -- heart disease, lung cancer, and stroke. There are roughly hundreds of websites devoted to it, not to mention newsletters, support groups, a whole genre of first-person breast-cancer books; even a glossy, upper-middle-brow, monthly magazine, Mamm.

There are four major national breast-cancer organizations, of which the mightiest, in financial terms, is The Susan G. Komen Foundation, headed by breast-cancer veteran and Bush's nominee for ambassador to Hungary Nancy Brinker. Komen organizes the annual Race for the Cure©, which attracts about a million people -- mostly survivors, friends, and family members. Its website provides a microcosm of the new breast-cancer culture, offering news of the races, message boards for accounts of individuals' struggles with the disease, and a "marketplace" of breast-cancer-related products to buy.

Ehrenreich then looks at why breast cancer is different and represents a different "opportunity."

[B]reast cancer has blossomed from wallflower to the most popular girl at the corporate charity prom. While AIDS goes begging and low-rent diseases like tuberculosis have no friends at all, breast cancer has been able to count on Revlon, Avon, Ford, Tiffany, Pier 1, Estee Lauder, Ralph Lauren, Lee Jeans, Saks Fifth Avenue, JC Penney, Boston Market, Wilson athletic gear -- and I apologize to those I've omitted.

You can "shop for the cure" during the week when Saks donates 2 percent of sales to a breast-cancer fund; "wear denim for the cure" during Lee National Denim Day, when for a $5 donation you get to wear blue jeans to work. You can even "invest for the cure," in the Kinetics Assets Management's new no-load Medical Fund, which specializes entirely in businesses involved in cancer research.

If you can't run, bike, or climb a mountain for the cure -- all of which endeavors are routine beneficiaries of corporate sponsorship -- you can always purchase one of the many products with a breast cancer theme.

There are 2.2 million American women in various stages of their breast-cancer careers, who, along with anxious relatives, make up a significant market for all things breast-cancer-related. Bears, for example: I have identified four distinct lines, or species, of these creatures, including "Carol," the Remembrance Bear; "Hope," the Breast Cancer Research Bear, which wears a pink turban as if to conceal chemotherapy-induced baldness; the "Susan Bear," named for Nancy Brinker's deceased sister, Susan; and the new Nick & Nora Wish Upon a Star Bear, available, along with the Susan Bear, at the Komen Foundation website's "marketplace."

And bears are only the tip, so to speak, of the cornucopia of pink-ribbon-themed breast-cancer products. ...

Despite the non-profit status, Komen and its aggressive and jealous trademarking and organizational branding looks a lot like like a major, professional, corporate operation, doesn't it?

And not a very feminist one. (There's a whole essay on that here by itself.) Ehrenreich is careful to note, for example, the infantilizing aspect of the products, not just from Komen, but throughout the breast cancer biz. After listing all the pink-themed geegaws, from Body Crème to journals-with-crayons (yes, crayons), she writes: "Certainly men diagnosed with prostate cancer do not receive gifts of Matchbox cars."

Not that this world of breast cancer sales to victims, survivors and families is one-sidedly bad:

This is not, I should point out, a case of cynical merchants exploiting the sick. Some of the breast-cancer tchotchkes and accessories are made by breast-cancer survivors themselves[.]

But it's not one-sidedly good either.

This piece is, first and foremost, a personal story of the assault on what she calls the "Barbara project" by the aggressive cells she hosts. Yes, Ehrenreich was diagnosed with breast cancer. This is her tale of it, and wonderful writing in its own right.

But the essay is so much more than a personal story, as the quotes above indicate.

Breast cancer really is different from any other health care charity

Breast cancer has a unique place among the country's charity "opportunities." For example, here Ehrenreich considers breast cancer's causes, noting that only 10% of breast cancers are gene-based, and looks at (1) the studies of environmental factors, (2) the issue of feminism, and (3) corp-friendly orgs like Komen:

[E]mphasis on possible ecological factors, which is not shared by groups such as Komen and the American Cancer Society, puts the feminist breast-cancer activists in league with other, frequently rambunctious, social movements -- environmental and anticorporate.

... and ...

as Cindy Pearson, director of the National Women's Health Network, the organizational progeny of the Women's Health Movement, puts it more caustically: "Breast cancer provides a way of doing something for women, without being feminist."

Smart. Can you see the corporate compromises shaping up? No ecology please, if you want our bucks. Some of us have pollution "issues." And feminist-free, thank you very much. Wouldn't want to offend Mr. Limbaugh, whom we may also sponsor.

So let's pause here and tote things up:

1. Komen's founder Nancy Brinker has a cancer story in her immediate family, and founds Komen for the Cure in 1982. She genuinely cares about breast cancer.

2. Brinker is also a right-wing Republican since Reagan and a loyal Bushie. She's a long-time big dollar donor to Republican causes and election campaigns, along with her then-husband Norman Brinker, whom she met in 1983.

Are the Brinkers bundlers as well? Not sure, but the rewards start to look like it. In 1986, President Reagan appointed her to the National Cancer Advisory Board; Bush I bumped her up to chair of the President's Cancer Advisory Panel.

By 2001 she was Bush II's Ambassador to Hungary (these are often thank-you's to bundlers and big donors, in both parties). Her electoral giving by that time had totaled a reported $175,000 to Republicans since 1990; at the same time, her husband's giving totaled nearly half a million.

Bush II liked her so much, he made her Chief of Protocol for the U.S. in 2007. (In that job, she got to greet the Pope first off the plane. Perk city.)

3. Finally, this from Ehrenreich:

Avon Breast Cancer Crusade, which sponsors three-day, sixty-mile walks, spends more than a third of the money raised on overhead and advertising, and Komen may similarly fritter away up to 25 percent of its gross...

Or more (see "Education" below).

The twin paths

Can you see the twin paths, and the way they can easily be merged?

On the political side, she's a big enough player in the scratch me–scratch you game of elections and funding that she gets ambassadorships. On the breast cancer side, she has a compelling story and a great feminist-free cause (unlike uterine cancer, for example, or cervical cancer, which involve the politics of actual reproduction).

As an agent of Movement Conservatism, she takes her political story to corporations and plays quid-pro-quo (no corp gives without getting — it's the law).

As a businesswoman running the largest charity in its "market," she takes her breast cancer story to corporations and plays quid-pro-quo (no corp gives without getting — it's the law).

Are there political quids for breast-cancer quos? There are a lot of ways to play quid-pro-quo as a high-dollar charity with politically active management; only one of them involves things like "pinkwashing." Take, for example, this pink gun (yep, go ahead and click; it's what you think it is).

What's the quo for this NRA-themed quid? Think there wasn't one? This minute, in my neighborhood, there's a real estate deal going on involving the city, a non-profit seller, a non-profit buyer, and a nice big downtown building. The deal is stalled; the city and the neighborhood need to move it along.  In comes a major property developer who's working on the seller and buyer to agree, just trying to help out.

There are hints of a side deal, in which one or both of the non-profits get access to the developer's big-money fundraising list and his go-ahead to use them. Sweet; that's money in the bank. The developer's involvement isn't public; I know about the side deal talk because I'm two "Kevin Bacons" from the developer, and the guy who's one Bacon away got the info direct from the source.

(If there's another side deal with the city, I haven't heard about it. But I wouldn't put it past them; these are pros.)

This is how it's done, folks. So back to the pinkwashed Walther P-22. Who benefits from the gun-dealer's deal with Komen? Just the Seattle seller, or pro-gun groups as well in their battle for gun rights everywhere? If I'm a deal-maker (and donation collector), I smell an opportunity. Did Komen or anyone else make use of it? I have no idea, but it's a fair question.

But if you start to wonder what the NRA (for example) might have given up in side deals to get gun-toting "washed in the pink" — and what may have been handed out by some fourth party as well — I say you're thinking like the pros yourself, walking in the woods with your eyes open, fog free.

Calling Jimmy Olsen

We're in a world of far more questions than answers, and I'd love some real-life Jimmy Olsen, someone looking for a career-making story, to dig deep into the money on this one; to find the side deals, if any.

Here's something to get you started, Mr. or Ms. Olsen — Salaries aside (almost $500,000 for the CEO), the bulk of Komen's outgoing money, almost 50%, is here called Education.

What's "Education"?

Komen's deal-making could be clean as a whistle. It could also be a rat hole — and not just a Republican one. The previous lobbying for Komen, just prior to Georgia-GOP Karen Handel coming on board, was Dem-heavy, and Nancy Pelosi just stepped up to forgive a post-chastened Komen. Quid? Quo? Bidding for the next dollar, or just a pal doing a pal a favor?

See what I mean? This is bigger than Planned Parenthood; that just opened the door. This is about money, a lot of it. We'll never really know what's going on until someone looks into it, and as I wrote earlier, the time to look is now.

(Me, I'm not named Olsen, but I am always open for links. If you send me a good one and I can't use it, I'll be sure to pass it on. And thanks.)

Update: And then there's this (h/t Amanda Marcotte).

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Video: Donkey either really likes or really hates the violin

I love the story that goes with it:

I had no idea how our donkey would react beforehand. Please excuse my playing. I was too distracted, LOL!

I bought Donkeyotee when he was a starving 4 and 1/2 month old colt who had been errantly weaned at 2 and 1/2 months of age. My vet didn't think he would make it through that first night. He was skin and bones, his ears drooped down, and he was too weak to take more than a single shuffling step on his own. Reported the previous owner to animal control and they investigated.

He is 7 years old now and very healthy. He makes me smile every day with his antics. You never know what can happen when you help an animal in need.

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Malaria much deadlier than previously thought

Most have known how serious the problem was, but this new research shows that the problem is even worse than previously believed. The Guardian:

Malaria kills twice as many people every year as formerly believed, taking 1.2 million lives and causing the deaths not only of babies but also older children and adults, according to research that overturns decades of assumptions about one of the world's most lethal diseases. The findings from the research, published on Friday, which has reanalysed 30 years of data on the disease using new techniques, will force a rethink of the huge global effort that has been under way to eliminate malaria. That ambition now looks highly unlikely by the UN target date of 2015. It also raises urgent questions about the future of the troubled Global Fund to Fight Aids, TB and Malaria, which has provided the money for most of the tools to combat the disease in Africa, such as insecticide-impregnated bed nets and new drugs. The fund is in financial crisis and has had to cancel its next grant-making round.

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NY Times study: SEC soft on Wall Street crime

In the Romney Rule America, law and order only applies to the 99%. If you wear an expensive suit and work on Wall Street, all is forgiven.

The problem with the SEC - like much of Washington - is that the job is only a stepping stone to a more profitable career in private industry. Taking a hard line against Wall Street is a job prospect killer for those working at the SEC. Think of the SEC as the minor league baseball training ground for the big leagues. The massive insertion of cash into political campaigns is widely discussed but the revolving door is just as damaging, if not worse.

Until these cozy relationships are ended, there's no hope of ever holding Wall Street accountable. Political class insiders can spin it any way they like, but this stinks of corruption. The justice system for the 1% is in desperate need of reform. NY Times:

An analysis by The New York Times of S.E.C. investigations over the last decade found nearly 350 instances where the agency has given big Wall Street institutions and other financial companies a pass on those or other sanctions. Those instances also include waivers permitting firms to underwrite certain stock and bond sales and manage mutual fund portfolios.

JPMorganChase, for example, has settled six fraud cases in the last 13 years, including one with a $228 million settlement last summer, but it has obtained at least 22 waivers, in part by arguing that it has “a strong record of compliance with securities laws.” Bank of America and Merrill Lynch, which merged in 2009, have settled 15 fraud cases and received at least 39 waivers.

Only about a dozen companies — Dell, General Electric and United Rentals among them — have felt the full force of the law after issuing misleading information about their businesses. Citigroup was the only major Wall Street bank among them. In 11 years, it settled six fraud cases and received 25 waivers before it lost most of its privileges in 2010.

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How hard-right Movement Conservatives use "the fog" to confuse their opposition

Rick Perlstein has his usual great piece up at Rolling Stone, his regular digs these days. And as is often the case, there's almost too much to like.

He makes a great point about how Romney's Mormonism won't eventually matter; you can read it just for that (I happen to agree with him). Or you can read it for the interesting history of the anti-Roe campaign (psst: evangelicals had to be organized into opposing Roe). I may write that up later.

My focus today is this great catch near the end. Here's a perfect example of how the right wing confounds its opposition (us). They are extremely professional. I call it "using the fog" (my emphasis and reparagraphing):

Not so long ago, a black man marrying a blond woman was a lynching offense among American reactionaries; now we have a black man, a reactionary himself, married to a blond woman, on the Supreme Court.

I like to imagine, as a thought experiment, the day, perhaps not too far off, when a Republican president nominates a Supreme Court Justice married to someone of the same sex, maybe even with the sanction of "orthodox" theology – with that gay Supreme Court justice casting the deciding vote that finally overturns Roe vs. Wade. It could happen. When the siren song of cobelligerency beckons, theological qualms tend to fall away. That's the way it's always been.

Clarence Thomas lost us in the fog, didn't he? At least he lost the leaders of the Democratic party opposition. Then he scampered to the goal, where he'll live till he dies.

Lost in the fog — If I was a strategist on the right, this is how I'd play it every time. They only have to throw us off balance briefly — we buy the stutter-step and quit running, they race past us to the goal — which is all they every care about in the world.

As my old Uncle Straight Talk used to say (who's much more direct than yours truly) — "Do they care about blacks? They care about winning. Do they care about gays? They care about winning. Do they care about women? They care about winning. Got that, son?"

Uncle Straight Talk knew a thing or two: They care about nothing else in the world. Why is that hard to respond to?

They lose us in the fog which they create. It's such a simple tactic — and folks, so easy to defeat. It doesn't matter if the fog is gayness, blackness ... or women-helping-women-fighting-cancer–ness (even if only 24% of the monster haul goes to Research and the rest of it funds everything else).

The fog is the fog; easy to spot. If you see the fog, and you see the knife, always watch the knife.

Simple, yes?

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