Goldman Sachs eyes $2tln European bank firesale Business Day
Spain reveals €100bn capital flight FT
Video of bizarre coin-operated mortuary scene automaton that is to go to auction The Automata
EP Committees Reject ACTA As Backlash Against Secretive IP Agreements Continues to Grow Michael Geist
Focus on presidential race is ‘a good way to distract people from the underlying lack of power that voters have’ Matt Stoller on Current TV
Federal Officials Shut Down 26 Bus Operators New York Times
America’s Rising Shadow Wars Mother Jones
Indonesia Proposes 40% Ownership Cap on Banks Published CNBC
Shame the Hacks: Malcolm Gladwell Edition, Shame Project
Barney Frank on Glass-Steagall, 1999 C-Span…. This is Barney Frank in 1999 explaining why he voted against the repeal of Glass-Steagall. He said he’s in favor of the bill as is, but he wants it to include more low income housing money. (h/t Congressional Record)
Mitt Romney’s Solyndra Attack Has A Few Hitches Huffington Post
Wells Fargo’s Stumpf Eyes Insurance Pick-Ups American Banker… A TBTF bank should totally buy insurance companies. What could go wrong?
Bill Clinton On Bain: ‘This Is Good Work’ (VIDEO) Huffington Post
How Charlie Rangel’s Outrage Shifted From Drugs to Drug Penalties Reason
China PMI Retreats More Than Expected in May CNBC
Clinton Says Romney Had Sterling Business Career Youtube
Underage Filipino children boost Facebook “likes” of anti-choice House candidate Pestka, 60 Americablog
* * *
D – 99 and counting.
“How?” said Brandoch Daha. “Say a dog bite me in the ham: must I bite him again i’ the same part?” –E. R. Eddison, The Worm Ouroboros
Occupy. “Starting Friday at Noon, good folks will descend on Frankfort [KY] and occupy the place,” i.e. the capitol. (For those who came in late, there were a series of US Capitol occupations after the Arab Spring, and long before AdBusters.) “May 10th [in London] was the largest police protest in world history… A handful of occupiers were there as well.” “David Cruz [whose home was protected by Occupy Minnesota] interprets the [R. T. Rybak’s] statement of the previous day that Minneapolis was not in the foreclosure business to mean that police actions at the home would be suspended. [Occupy Minnesota then re-occupied the Cruz home.] [T]he property was [then re-]raided by a substantial force of police and firemen. [An] angry crowd went to the mayor’s office and asked if the mayor had lost control of the police force or was he not telling the truth.” “The first mayor of a large U.S. city to endorse Obama in 2008, Rybak is one of five Vice Chairs of the DNC.”
Montreal. “After four days of negotiation, the provincial government and student groups announced Thursday that their talks had gone nowhere.” Education Minister Courchesne pulls the plug. Premier Charest: “It’s up to the silent majority to express itself. There will be an election within 18 months.” Silent majority? “How can they claim they are acting in good faith, if the only thing they offer is shifting the debt burden from one student to another, or from one student, to the same.” “Montreal’s 38th consecutive nightly protest was still unfolding peacefully as of 10 p.m. Thursday, … drew a crowd of several thousand and got off to its usual start at 8 p.m. with the sound of pots and pans echoing through Place Émilie-Gamelin.” (Map. Place Émilie-Gamelin is the heart of the student quarter, also at Berri-UQAM, the intersection of Montreal’s Green (East-West) and Orange (North-South-North) Metro lines.) Speaking of maps: Carte de Manifestations. “The game changing moment came when the province tried to criminalize public protest.” Anonymous is claimed to have hacked into accounts of Montreal Grand Prix fans who bought tickets online. Disinformation? Stupidity? Michelle Courchesne dans l’eau chaude: ” … [Education Minister] Michelle Courchesne accused of showing favoritism in awarding grants for sports facilities, between 2007 and 2010.”
AZ. Tinpot Tyrant Watch: Valdez said her daughter came home with a card from school: “You’re Tops! Catastrophe Award … [f]or Most Excuses for Not Having Homework.” The teacher signed the card “Ms. Plowman,” added the date … and even included a smiley face. The teacher announced the award in front of the entire class, and the other students laughed.”
DC. NCAS criticizes proposed Eisenhower Memorial as “impious, soulless.” It mentions the 91% top rate, then?
FL. Voter purge: “Those of us who have been here long enough get this eerie similarity to the flawed felon databases of 2000 in Florida.” But: ‘U.S. Department of Justice ordered Florida’s elections division to halt a systematic effort to find and purge the state’s voter rolls of noncitizens.” Finally. “U.S. District Court Judge Robert L. Hinkle blocked most of the FL law’s new registration requirements today. ‘If the goal is to discourage voter-registration drives and thus also to make it harder for new voters to register, this may work.'”
IA. “The fire at the Iowa City landfill is expected to continue burning until next week.” IA Rs, the RNC, and other state R organizations mobilize to support Walker in his June 5 recall electio (hat tips TTH).
MA. “Full statement by Elizabeth Warren on ancestry.” Story “like water torture.” Quick! I’ve got Ilya Sheyman’s team on the line! Shorter Pierce: Ds unaware Rs are raftuckers. Darwin Award nominations open! Brown ad: “Go Celtics!”
OH. Josiah Bartlet campaigns for D Sen Sherrod Brown.
WI. Bill Clinton to visit, but not Obama. Or even Biden. “Milwaukee County prosecutors opened the secret John Doe criminal investigation more than two years ago after being stonewalled by Gov. Scott Walker’s office when he was county executive, according to a newly released record. … Walker has repeatedly brushed aside questions about the John Doe by claiming credit for launching it.” “A 13th person has been granted immunity in a secret Milwaukee County investigation that has already led to criminal charges against six people close to Gov. Scott Walker.” E.J. Dionne makes a better case for Barrett than the Ds do. Not hard. Last night’s debate: “BARRET: I have a police department that arrests felons. He has a practice of hiring them.” Voter: “I just believe in everything Walker is doing. I’m tired of people getting away with doing nothing. I worked three jobs, raised my children, paid my own health insurance and I don’t agree with people who say you owe it to me to help me.” Voter: “I’ve paid my health insurance since the day I started working” (Land of a Thousand Yorkshireman). “I think the election will really come down to who gets out the vote, I think it really will be decided by a ground gain, not the air wars.” And so: “The UW’s Teaching Assistants’ Association (TAA) declines to endorse D Barrett. ‘Through his use of [Walker’s] Act 10 against the workers in Milwaukee [Barrett] has shown that he is not deserving of support of unions in Wisconsin.’ ‘What this means for the TAA is that the conversation is going to shift back to how to meaningfully and effectively rebuild our membership [instead of wasting] time and money on supporting a candidate who doesn’t care about us.'” Oopsie.
Libertarian Party. “The Federal Election Commission has declared [Presidential candidate] Gary Earl Johnson eligible to receive federal matching funds”
Inside Baseball. Nooners: “[Obama] opened his campaign with a full-fledged assault on his opponent. … An incumbent should begin his campaign with a full-fledged assertion of the excellence of his administration. … Mr. Romney should face what didn’t work the past 12 years. Republicans took some wrong turns, and they know it.” Obama 46, Romney 45; IA: Romney 44, Obama 44; CO: NV: Obama 48, Romney, 46. Larry Sabato on the polls: “This is a matchup that could go either way.” We gotta play it one day at a time. Edwards, after being cleared on one count, mistrial on others: ‘Thank goodness that we live in a country that has the kind of system that we have.'” “John Edwards was the only person in the 2007 primary campaign who was talking about the poor.” True. “The trial yielded something. We now know what a delusional figure Edwards was–in that he held out hope for Obama tapping him for some high spot–even as his mistress, Rielle Hunter was pregnant. We also know what a really good liar he is.” Also true. “Melaleuca”…. Metal band, right? How to debunk: Nice diagram. A pattern language for organizing? Beautiful Trouble.
Grand Bargain™-brand catfood. “Bob” Rubin D, Tues: “Fortunately, the so-called fiscal cliff will soon create an extraordinary second opportunity for a breakthrough compromise.” Fap fap fap fap. Bruce Bartlett R, Thurs: “With all due respect, I think Mr Rubin is engaging in wishful thinking.”
Romney. “The weird thing about 2012 is that the party really was never that excited about Romney.” Staffer on Romney Solyndra visit: “The reason for keeping it quiet is because we knew if word got out that Solyndra would do everything in their power and the Obama administration would do everything in their power [Drone strikes? Targeted assassinations?] to stop us from having this news conference.” Cheeky, Solyndra, but why not Jippy Mo or Golden Sacks? Urban Outfitters T-shirt: “2 legit 2 mitt.” (Not 2L4O?) “Romney says he’d arm anti-government forces, a muscular sign of U.S. resolve that would help level the battlefield. Obama is relying on diplomacy.” Playing fields are leveled, not battlefields. And Obama is relying on covert operations, as well as diplomacy. And what about those hard drives?
Obama. Obama, Scott Walker follow the same script for survival. Teebee, Latinos: “Each includes a clip of the president saying ‘we get each other’s back’ at a campaign rally.” Half true. Teebee: “‘There are times when I watch Mitt Romney saying the exact same things now as he said here in Massachusetts in 2002 in a robotic way that is completely hollow,’ Carl Sciortino, a state representative from Middlesex, says in the video.” Somebody’ s been reading Pierce! But sheesh, OHQ quotes a state rep, and not an “ordinary citizen” or “average middle class voter”? How out of touch is that? Money: “It’s go time. It’s time to step it up,” added a top D in outside group, who said the rallying cry wasn’t a “sense of defeat or a sense of demoralization.” No no. Hey, why not throw some banksters in jail for an October surprise?
* 99 days ’til the Democratic National Convention feasts on North Carolina barbecue on the floor of the Bank of America Stadium, Charlotte, NC. 99%…
A la prochaine fois!
* * *
Antidote du jour:
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this is worse than i imagined; moodys says 79% of european securitized commercial mortgages are delinquent:
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-05-31/moody-s-says-79-percent-of-european-cmbs-went-unpaid-in-first-quarter
Dear rjs;
Not to mention the US banks’ exposure to them through ‘exotic’ derivatives. Also, I wonder what the US commercial mortgage delinquency rate is? Drive around any suburb and see all the empty storefronts. What was the magic number I read somewhere, five years till reset?
i answered this question with two legit links & its now in moderation…
10.04% of US CMBS are delinquent; 11.79% of US residential mortgages are…
Dear rjs;
Thank you. I wonder if the rough parity of Commercial and Residential Mortgages is a historical norm.
Friends;
That antidote looks like the Rainbow Coalitions’ version of a ‘Catfood Comission.’
No way!! Can’t you see that’s Hendrix transmigrated to cat!!
I thought that was Grace Slick?
Grateful Dead Tongue…
Skippy… What people wont do to their pets… I hope the have some eye wash for later… kitty is going to need it… look at the state of um now!
Dear skippy;
You are truly devious and sly. That IS a China Cat now, isn’t it.
Take palms and place on temples, pull back towards ears and repeat in high pitched silly voice…. Gawd damn Chinese booooyyyy!
Skippy… a ritual I have observed, by those, that partake in such devices.
PS… Never, never give tropical parrots fresh whipped cream with sugar added. The ensuing gyrations of rolling eyes, beak – tongue, globular mucus and ani internus spasms, left one poor lass on all fours in the back yard. Her gyrations were not unlike the parrots, a bit more subdued IMO. Everyone else was momentary incapacitated, but for other reasons.
Said parrot and lass, made a full recovery in about 10 minutes… en fin.
Bilderberg Meetings
Chantilly, Virginia, USA, 31 May-3 June 2012
http://www.bilderbergmeetings.org/participants2012.html
Malcolm G, one of those guys who I’d feel wary of, put could never really put my finger on it. I guess the link pretty much sums it up. Too many public figures who are charlatans. Or maybe being public makes it too tempting to become one… idk.
People have to believe they have rights. People have to believe they deserve power.’
Such dangerous beliefs are precisely what decades of government policy have striven to eradicate.
The War on Drugs says that you don’t even own your own body. Pervasive electronic surveillance says that you have no right to personal or financial privacy. A 95% conviction rate in federal courts makes arrest tantamount to a prison sentence. Confront the powers that be, and they can disappear you into the Gulag with ease — or blow up your home with a rocket, if you’ve really annoyed them.
As Matt Stoller says, voting for the Depublicrat national socialist warmonger of your choice is a sideshow. No self-respecting citizen should participate in this putrid sham.
A ruling duopoly engaged in dismantling the constitution CANNOT be reformed via the voting process. All reform begins by declaring the utter illegitimacy of our Potemkin Kongress, Potemkin courts and Potemkin presidency.
Yep. If only this message could get equal time with the Republicrat propaganda we’re already being inundated with for the 2012 carnival sideshow. It’s all a veritable house of mirrors at this point.
Unfortunately, as usual, Stoller fails to mention there is a choice outside the duopoly ….
As far as other activities to demonstrate power that “used to” work – what happened to them? Could it be that we ceded them to TPTB the same way we ceded control of the electoral process?
Or, if they were taken away, who says we can get them back? If we can get them back we can get back control of our electoral process as well …
Indeed, as long as he can only conceive of the duopoly in control, he is right – but his failure of imagination means he is throwing out the baby with the bathwater … big mistake …
How can you say hacking the F1 tickets is stupidity or disinfo? Disrupting the F1 is part of a strategy of economic disruption, which I personally heard described by Quebec student representatives at a panel in Chicago on the 19th. All you care about is being media friendly! Never mind that, as I’ve said many times, the media will always hate the people; more importantly is that you ignore that CLASSE is able to turn out these huge numbers not because “the people” see a good cause on TV and spontaneously sympathize, but because CLASSE is a highly organized federation. If it can bring 200,000 people to an event, it’s because they RSVP’d.
Fuck the media! If you’re organized, you don’t need it; if you’re not organized, you’re fucked anyway!
No (and of course not; serious “meet the new boss” violence advocates like yourself always have to lie because most people don’t support either your tactics or your goals, to the extent you are willing to describe them).
I support strategies that incorporate the broadest possible number of people (“all walks of life”) by lowering the threshold for involvement; you continually distort this; see above, at “lie” et seq. So, Mr. Plywood Shields, random acts of teen fuckwittery that don’t do that are, indeed, stupid.
As for media strategy, AdBusters is drenched in it, like the situationists. Is that problem for you?
UPDATE Interesting you’re arguing from authority on CLASSE. Funny stance for a putative anarchist. Even a great organization can have a stupid idea. Of course, if you’re caught up in tribalism, or the group dynamics of some affinity group, you might not see that. Which is why outside observers are useful.
Where did I argue from authority?? Or is ‘arguing from credibility’ now a logical fallacy in your mind? Because turning out 200,000 people makes an organization pretty fucking credible!
I actually agree with Lambert that this is probably a disinformation operation.
Although I definitely agree with you in the whole diversity of tactics/violence concern-trolling debate.
You’re both right on this issue though.
Anonymous is a perp organization, is my strong and educated hunch. I think it’s there to entrap unwitting activists and to give legitimate protesters a bad name.
I agree with you that property destruction and even violence is a *normal* human response to an abusive system. Even people like progressives admit this when they support an alleged rebellion in Syria where the “activists” are shooting police dead and conducting massive terror attacks. Heck, the Egyptian protests had much more violence and progressives didn’t concern-troll them nearly as much as they are concern-trolling American protesters.
But these stunts are stupid. They are intended to be counterproductive. Just like the stunt a few months ago where Anonymous published addresses of Oakland Police Officers. This doesn’t seem like the more considered direct actions that I have seen some anarchist and ‘black bloc’ protesters engage in before. Their Day of Rage was much more measured and thoughtful. Same with the Takeover actions and a the Port Shutdown, etc.
Oh, the San Francisco May Day protests were also probably government operations too because they targeted local small shops and random cars.
Mitt,
You want my vote based on your attacking an energy subsidy scheme? Here’s how you might get it. State your position on how you are going to eliminate this energy boondoggle:
“The Price Anderson Act is anti-consumer because it asks taxpayers to assume most of the liability of nuclear accidents. If the nuclear industry cannot have enough faith in its own technology to guarantee full responsibility for their own mishaps, then nuclear energy does not deserve these continued taxpayer subsidies. When Congress first created Price Anderson 44 years ago, they made it clear the Act was temporary legislation. After so many decades and billions in subsidies later, it is time to retire this boondoggle.
The Price Anderson Act – a law that subsidizes nuclear power by creating liability protection for nuclear accidents – will expire in August 2002. The nuclear industry is working hard to ensure that the bill is reauthorized and expanded to cover a new generation of nuclear plants. Several bills have been introduced in the 107th Congress to renew the Act for another ten year period. Proponents of nuclear power are using their influence to ensure that this liability coverage would be expanded to new reactors.
The primary mission of the Act is to subsidize shareholders’ value in nuclear power by placing a cap on the amount of insurance protection, thereby limiting the nuclear utilities’ liability.”
http://www.mindfully.org/Nucs/Price-Anderson-Act.htm
Re Bubba Clinton, it depends what your definition of “sterling” is.
Shocker: Poor unemployment report points to troubled US economy.
We’ve got two doctors: One won’t tell us we’ve got cancer; the other tells us, but says he can cure it with magic herbs and tribal chanting.
[pounds head on desk]
You forgot the 3rd – the real one …
More from “tools in support of Bain” :
http://thegrio.com/2012/05/31/governor-deval-patrick-calls-bain-capital-a-perfectly-fine-company/
Of course you have friends at Bain, Deval. Of course.
It’s his 2016 Presidential Campaign funds
A corporatist tool like Clinton thinks that a slash and trash outfit like Bain is totally cool. I never saw that one coming. /s
I think the capital flight in Spain is the big story. Europe has been like a ship gradually taking on water but what is happening in Spain represents the moment where the water begins coming in over the side and the question becomes not if the ship will sink but how fast.
Obama Tells Donors Re-Election Chance to Break Partisan ‘Fever’ http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-06-01/obama-tells-donors-re-election-chance-to-break-partisan-fever-.html
Oy vey…
What’s he got, doc? http://www.cartoonstock.com/newscartoons/cartoonists/mmo/lowres/mmon662l.jpg
The wisdom of savage chickens http://www.savagechickens.com/images/chickenhypo.jpg
Riddle me this http://goodmorningkeywest.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/political-cartoon.jpg
Oyveyisright. obama is like the shiny toy from 4 years ago sitting under the christmas tree. it’s like, whoa, that agaiin? you can’t recycle Christmas toys like that!
and romney is like some dude who knows it’s Christmmas but isn’t sure just what to do. YOu begin to wonder if he’s from some outer space planet somewhere, on some secret mission that has nothing to do with being president, that’s only the cover story. the olnly way to know what that mission is is to go out into the woods at midnight on a moonless clear night, and find a clearing where you can see the sky, and look up and start channeling. that usually provides an answer for almost any question, usually the right answer,which is really weird actually.
Holy cow it’s eating my comments again. I’m beginning to feel like Jake Chase here. I feel your pain, Jake.
So no postcards from Yves Smith. Did she fall head first into the absinthe bar and say f0–ck this money stuff, what was I ever thinking? haha
She has a lot to catch up on. I have a theory that there’s now two Europes. The one with legs and arms and trees and rocks and clouds. In this one they work off the books and when the make a sale they say “haha. what sale?” and the money goes in the drawer. except Greece where the money goes to Germany.
and then there’s the Europe that exists in the mind of the human financial calculators. they see all sorts of Cartesian graphs and charts, mostly pointing down and to the left.
just a theory. Maybe Yves will report on some adventures among the hands and feet and eyes of eryp.
oops down and to the right, not left. I was looking at the monitor from the front. haha. sorry about that pointless confusion.
gladto see goldjump today. Just a few million a way from never working again. Just need it to got to $40,000 per ounce and I’m outta here. If somebody sends me $1 million I swear to God I’ll be silent forever.
Tie dye hippie cat, drunk on corn syrup.
He mocks me.
and what are you drinking tonight? we’re getting out the good bourbon :)
A great excuse to post MORE Savage Chickens (I love those guys)
Savage Chickens and drinking, Part 1 http://www.savagechickens.com/images/chickengoals.jpg
Savage Chickens and drinking, Part 2 http://www.savagechickens.com/images/chickenbinge.jpg
Savage Chickens and drinking, Part 3 (TGIF) http://www.savagechickens.com/images/chickenfridaynight.jpg
Minnesota public radio discussion on inequality and jobs: http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2012/06/01/daily-circuit-nick-hanauer-wealthy-job-creators/
Its the first broadcast media show that presents demand as the driver for employment, which should be no surprise here.