IMO, this is great for Maliki. From what I pick up, he wants to kick the U.S. out asap. Now, he’s in a delicate position, because the U.S. can deep-six him as easy as you can say CIA. But the more anti-U.S. sentiment, the better for Maliki.

Yup, I agree. Was helpful during the SOFA negotiations, too.

sheesh. whatever it takes. release him for time served.

I was seeing a whole country in calamity while Bush was giving a cold and spiritless smile,

sums it all up

It’s de rigueur. Sounds like the judge is looking for an out. Sort of like as in the movie Miracle on 34th Street where the judge didn’t want to rule there was no Santa Claus.

The better for Obama and 16 months too.

I have to say, the shoe throwing was genuinely done from the bottom of al Zeidi’s heart. I wonder if it was even planned?

Would it be a miracle if the U.S. were actually kicked out?

I’ve been keeping up with Gareth Porter’s reporting on the Petreus/Odierno treason (trying to subvert the commander-in-chief). Obama’s resistence and Maliki’s political independence popularity seem to combine to prevent helicopters on the embassy rooftop. Also Patrick Cockburn’s reporting.

Of course he faces (at least) another month of uncertainty behind bars. Let’s hope the judge finds the requisite excuse to release him at that time.

OT
Jindal commits political suicide.

Ooops. Link screwed up. http://thinkprogress.org/2009/…..nemployed/

We need some flip flop justice… release that man!

o/t.

I can’t take it. It’s my fault if I have a crappy mortgage if I didn’t have a lawyer read the paper from a unscrupulous unlicensed mortgage broker. The government shouldn’t have anything to do with the “sacred” contract.

IOW, there is no contract law?

blergh.

yeah, no sense clogging the justice system

I saw that. At least he is being consistent, unlike the Republicans who criticize the stimulus while holding out their hand to get their share.

If it spells political doom for Jindal, Palin will have to tab somebody else as her running mate in ‘12.

What Zeudi did had sole.

Let the heeling begin.

I’m wondering whether he could be impeached for this.

Isn’t it kinda his job to take care of Louisiana citizens *ahead* of planning his future political career?

Don’t make me shoe all you unruly punsters out of here!

Hey, waving from California! we’ll take that $90million. thank ya kindly!

Sounds like he doesn’t know his aspiration from a hole in the ground.

No call to be so strait-laced.

well, it’s interesting that in the comments at TP, someone pointed out that hey, we’ve all been saying if a Gooper doesn’t support the stimulus, he shouldn’t take the money…but wow!

Or did he cherry pick what he didn’t want to stick it to certain voters in certain blue districts a la Bush?

Yes, we will and any more you might have around. I don’t “heart” Arhuld.

Bush was there as an ‘occupier’? How smart of the Iraqis to say that and how stupid for the Bush-supporting-neocons-of-America for continuing to deny this fact!

oh that comment was on the Jindal jangle.

Hi Twain.

Jeebus. I heard on the radio this a.m. we are now 50th in dollars per student. That’s pretty appalling!!!

OK no more from me. I don’t want to be booted out of here.

Oh, Hugh. You know you’ll always have a platform here.

The state legislature can overrule the gov and accept the money. His political calculators are figuring the people will forget.

” Obama Stays the Course on Bagram

The Justice Department today said it would adhere to the Bush administration’s position that detainees imprisoned at a U.S. air base in Afghanistan have no right to challenge their confinement in U.S. courts.

The approximately 650 prisoners in the hardscrabble Bagram prison are being held there indefinitely and without charge. The prison is closed to journalists and human rights activists, and while it has long been dubbed “the other Guantánamo,” Bagram detainees lack the same privileges, such as regular access to lawyers. “

http://legaltimes.typepad.com/…..gram-.html

A bank take-over will be handled through the FDIC. Which does some of the small-town bank seizings quite nicely. But do you know how large Citigrioup is? About 100 times bigger than the FDIC can handle, I would venture. Throw in Bank of America, and you have the proverbial recipe for utter mayhem.

They will turn to the likes of Robert Rubin, a Citi ex-head honcho and one of the main instigators of the entire US part of the crisis, to help find what’s what at Citi. BofA CEO Ken Lewis will be asked for assistance in untangling his bank’s messes. Lesis is under legal investigation. Nationalization might turn into the ultimate swig at the public trough.

These banks are far bigger than the government can handle. For that matter, they’re far bigger than the government itself. We are about to witness the biggest and worst boondoggle in US history. It may come later today (though the White House tries to deny it), or it may take a bit longer. But boy oh boy, if you think the $10+ trillion burned down so far were an event, you’re in for a treat. And boy oh boy, will you ever pay. Will Prince Alwaleed?”

Citigroup and Bank of America, which received $90 billion in U.S. aid in the past four months, fell as much as 36 percent today on concern they may be nationalized. Citigroup, based in New York, fell as low as $1.61. Bank of America, based in Charlotte, North Carolina, tumbled as low as $2.53.

Hi. Can remember when Ca was number one and we were admired for our school system. I watched it come apart as my children moved through the system. By the time the last was out it was in ruins.

One suggestion which sorta kinda made sense to me, but y’all can talk me out of it…

let the big banks tank, pump money into credit unions which are relatively healthy.

What do the smart kids of the Lake think of that idea?

His political calculators are figuring the people will forget.

yeah, like they’ve forgotten that little Katrina kerfuffle….

He’s toast.

We’re going to make another bold prediction. Bank of America and Citigroup won’t live to see May. The two banks will be nationalized in the coming weeks, and we think that the announcement can come as soon as tomorrow evening (Friday evenings are when major bank announcements and failures occur).

The US government has already committed half a trillion dollars to these two firms which is more than 10 times the amount it would cost to buy and control both companies. The market doesn’t believe that $500 billion is enough to save these companies. All the kings horses and all the kings men can’t put humpty dumpty back together again.

Today both banks made fresh new lows with Citi closing at $2.51 and Bank of America closing at $3.93. The 1 year charts below show the short term price movements. You should understand that when a bank stock’s chart looks like this, even a HEALTHY bank would be in trouble. Nobody wants their deposits tied up in a company that trades at $2. The outflows of deposits from Bank of America and Citi must be catastrophic.

” Muntazer al-Zaidi said on Thursday at the start of his trial in Baghdad on charges of assaulting a foreign leader that he took a recording of his shoe-throwing training two years ago and had hoped to accost Bush in Jordan but this did not take place.

But Zaidi, whose unusual protest overshadowed Bush’s final visit to Iraq in December, insisted he had not planned to attack Bush this time. “

http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/40022

Yep. I remember my teachers were fresh out of college and our schools were brand new. They drove VW bugs and we girls got to wear pants to class.

I heard the only reason our colleges didn’t get ranked last was because of the community college system we have. But I could have that part wrong. It was a while ago and my memory is crap.

”The global economy is now literally in free fall as the contraction of consumption, capital spending, residential investment, production employment, exports and imports is accelerating rather than decelerating,” Roubini said. The protracted downturn Roubini warned of can only be prevented by “a strong, aggressive, coherent and credible combination of monetary easing (traditional and unorthodox), fiscal stimulus, proper clean-up of the financial system and reduction of the debt burden of insolvent private agents (households and non-financial companies),” he said.

He’s toast.

Yep. Or Jindal will reverse himself within hours. But then, he’s probably toast on that scenario too. I just luv it when Rs are hoist on their own petard. Second only to schadenfreude.

Citigroup’s market capitalization shrank to $11.5 billion, making it worth less than asset administrator Northern Trust Corp. Bank of America stood at $21 billion.

About 220,000 stores may close this year in America, says our guest, retail consultant Howard Davidowitz of Davidowitz & Associates. As more Americans save and spend less, it’s clear there’s too much retail space. Just visit Web site deadmalls.com and track retail’s growing body count. And luxury retailers? They’re on “life support,” Davidowitz says.
Among the brandname stores Davidowitz says are in trouble:
• Nordstrom
• Neiman Marcus
• Tiffany
• Jeweler Zale Corp.
• Saks
• J.C. Penney
• Sears

Sander, this is a too big to fail diary post split into little bitty pieces…this is interesting stuff and deserves its own post.

Nationalization (receivorship) is already in the works. Greenspan sez so. Dodd sez so. Admin doesn’t say no. It’s baked in the cake.

The easiest to understand is the collapse of industrial production in East Asia, where the supply chain starts in places like Taiwan and Vietnam and moves through places like China and Japan before cars, shoes, computers and flat-panel TVs arrive at stores in the United States, Western Europe and everywhere else. According to Barry Eichengreen, an economist at the University of California at Berkeley, the 40 percent decline in Taiwan’s industrial production at the end of last year was the “canary in the coal mine” of Team Asia’s formidable export machine. At about the same time, Japan’s exports fell 35 percent, Korea’s 17 percent, and China’s fourth-quarter gross domestic product was essentially flat — no economic growth at all.

Bank of America Chairman and Chief Executive Kenneth Lewis was issued a subpoena by New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, who is investigating whether the bank withheld information from investors in violation of state law, according to people familiar with the matter. Mr. Lewis, who received the subpoena late last week, is the highest-profile subject of Mr. Cuomo’s investigation into the Charlotte, N.C., bank’s purchase of Merrill Lynch & Co. on Jan. 1. Mr. Cuomo’s office is trying to determine if investors were misled about the depth of Merrill’s losses in late 2008 and whether details of the bonuses to Merrill employees, contained in a nonpublic document, should have been disclosed to investors. A BofA spokesman declined to comment on the subpoena.

I can live without the others but Nordstrom must survive. I have also read that Macy’s is in trouble and that’s another must have. There are lots of empty stores around this area and more to come I’m sure.

The housing rescue plan is, in part, an attempt to rescue banks, whose balance sheets will be further undermined by drops in house prices and defaults causing many more failures. The bottom line is that many Americans who have mortgages would be better off renting. American consumer balance sheets are incredibly stretched. The average American has perhaps 30 percent of the equity in his house, but that figure hides the people who own their homes outright, thus leaving a huge rump, especially at the bottom end, who have very high loans-to-value. About 28 percent of mortgage borrowers now owe more than the value of the houses, according to Zelman & Associates. And with equity stocks down 45 to 50 percent, their assets have shrunk more alarmingly, making them less good risks.

BOA Lewis sez all is copacetic.

Hi Swopa!

This is wonderful legal reasoning: the occupier crashed in, as occupiers are wont to do, to check up on his occupying Army (and Vichy puppet GZG) and I threw a shoe at him! Since Bush wasn’t in Iraq as a visiting head of state, the insult law has no applicability.

I just hope Yoo and Rumsfeld don’t hire lawyers quite so clever when the time comes.

Inventory cycle is an economic killer.

First, Arthur Santa-Maria called Bank of America to ask how to check the balance of his new unemployment benefits debit card. The bank charged him 50 cents. He chose not to complain. That would have cost another 50 cents. So he took out some of the money and then decided to pull out the rest. But that made two withdrawals on the same day, and that was $1.50. For hundreds of thousands of workers losing their jobs during the recession, there’s a new twist to their financial pain: Even when they’re collecting unemployment benefits, they’re paying the bank just to get the money — or even to call customer service to complain about it.

In 2005 I interviewed Peter Wuffli, then the CEO of Swiss Bank UBS. I asked him how he felt about Swiss bank accounts being used by citizens of other countries to hide funds from the taxman. This is how he responded: “We have a very clear distinction between tax fraud, which is a criminal offense, and tax avoidance, which is not a criminal offense.”

The worst thing about Macy*s is that it bought up so many wonderful regional department stores nationwide and homogenized them all into Macy*s. Now they are overextended and can’t support the reach of the chain, and all those cities may lose their original local stores (gone) as well as Macy*s.

The acquisitions for “economy of scale” must stop — they create entities so big that if allowed to fail, a city’s economy is endangered.

And here’s another one: Hershey bought Joseph Schmidt and Scharffenberger, premier Bay Area chocolatiers, five years ago. Now they are shutting them down. What’s the point of that except corporate piracy?

They are stumbling and lurching into nationalization and the really bad news is that bozos like Summers and Geithner will be the ones handling it.

There are ways to do these things and do them right. But the operative strategy of our modern world is to find the biggest clowns we can find and put them in charge.

While its not clear how many accounts will be subject to this agreement, American clients must be quaking in their boots. Some have already been pursuing settlements with the IRS. Tax-evading clients from other countries, notably Germany, and the Swiss private banking industry that thrives on their stashed wealth must also be very worried. If the U.S. can successfully pressure UBS into revealing sensitive information on clients, then other jurisdictions may also hope to be successful. UBS is trying to limit the number of accounts it will be forced to reveal. The U.S. government has filed a civil suit asking a court to order UBS to disclose all secret accounts of U.S. customers. According to the lawsuit, as many as 52,000 U.S. customers hid their UBS accounts from the government.

Thanks.

They are going to try to dump their garbage paper on the tax payers and not stick it to the shareholders.

Yep. Nationalization is baked in the cake, but doing it right is not.

UK car production fell 58.7pc in January, confirming the dramatic decline in the country’s motor industry. The steep decline comes as car makers including Ford, Honda, Toyota, Nissan, BMW’s Mini and Jaguar Land Rover cut production and jobs.

What part of mafia RICO is the DOJ missing here?

Macy’s deserves to die for selling crap. JCPenny need to hire some new buyers, but their quality is okay. Nordstrom holds about half the inventory they used to, but I’ve always liked their business model and the quality of their merchandise.

Madoff, 70, has been charged by federal prosecutors with one count of securities fraud. He faces as much as 20 years in prison and a $5 million fine if convicted. He hasn’t formally responded to the charges.

Some audience members thanked Picard, others vented their frustration on him. “Where is our recourse?” one woman asked. “Where is our help here?” “We’re the victims not only of Madoff,” one man told Picard. “We’re the victims of the SEC.” Picard emphasized that his administrative expenses, including his salary, come from the SIPC fund, not the money and assets he recovers. “I would hope in the recovery you look not just for artwork but I would get the furniture, his clothes, the curtains on the windows,” one woman said. Picard explained that Madoff’s personal effects are handled by prosecutors in the criminal case. Once they may become available, “I assure you, we are not going to waste any time,” he said.

Economic sage David Brooks holding forth on the NewsHour. God that man has shit for brains.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, which charged Mr. Stanford and two Stanford Group Co executives on Tuesday with an $8 billion fraud, said it did not know where the flamboyant 58-year-old financier and sports entrepreneur was. In Miami, the local NBC television station reported that Stanford Group offices there had been raided by federal authorities, a day after a similar raid at Stanford’s U.S. headquarters in Houston. The U.S. Attorney’s Office and an FBI spokeswoman in Miami said their agencies had not been involved in the latest raid and referred calls to the SEC.

The Americans can always be counted on to do the right thing, after they have exhausted all the alternatives. — Winston Churchill

Former Swiss President Adolf Ogi said he would resign from the board of Stanford Financial Group. A leading figure in British cricket described the England and Wales Cricket Board’s (ECB) association with Stanford as a “fiasco. A planned Stanford-sponsored Twenty20 international cricket tournament was now unlikely to take place, ECB chairman Giles Clarke said. In Antigua, Mr. Stanford owns the country’s largest newspaper, heads a local commercial bank, and is the first American to receive a knighthood from its government. He has homes across the region, from Antigua to St. Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands to Miami.

” This is a gross misrepresentation of the choice Obama faces. Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn) and others have alleged that the contract for 28 Marine One helicopters was awarded to the Italian firm Finmeccanica as a thank you for Italy’s participation in the Iraq War. The evidence, however, indicates that the contract was more specifically a payoff to the Italian government for supplying the forged documents showing Saddam had obtained weapons grade uranium from Niger. President Bush famously used this fraudulent “yellowcake” intelligence to justify launching the war. “

http://www.alternet.org/audits…..nts?page=2

I’m so sick of that quote. Just because the U.S. has come out on top doesn’t mean it eventually does the right thing.

Well 20 years would be a life sentence for him but I’m hoping that this is just a placeholder charge and that they nail for a million years. And the idea that his family didn’t know when most of them worked for him, I believe this about as much as I do in unicorns.

How’s about we bring back Speitzer?

FBI picked him up Thursday in VA.

It would be so nice if that were true and we could finally come to a conclusion on the forged yellowcake docs.

Predict that Madoff will be hiding in his $7 million (2008 dollars) apt for the rest of his life as legal shenanigans are used to hide SEC malfeasance.

I’m not sure this time around that we will have the time and resources to wait.

With Summers, Geithner and Bernanke we’re in trouble.

As I’ve said before Madoff is an economic terrorist like a lot of these CEOs who are still walking around free. But there is something very bogus about he is being treated. I get the feeling that there is some part of the story that is not being told. I don’t know if it with the SEC, or where the money went, or if there is an Israel tie-in but there seems to be something.

With Summers, Geithner and Bernanke we’re in trouble.

Obama has gone with the Establishment in his choices. Where this goes wrong is that the Establishment is part of the problem.

Yep.

which country? Oh right, both the US and Iraq.

I think that Petraeus and Odierno are trying to delay any actual efforts at withdrawal UNTIL that point. IOW there will simply be too much problems in pulling out safely and leaving Iraqi security in place by the time that deadline arrives. That will create a new crisis, and violence, and they’ll say…” See we told you the situation wasn’t stable.” It will, of course, be of their own creation.

Obama needs to make these guys follow a specific timetable…if they lag behind…especially by a month…they should be shown the door and repolaced with someone who will start withdrawing at due pace.

The Democrats control the State legislature in LA but who knows how many down there are Stealth Republicans.

http://ballotpedia.org/wiki/in…..egislature

It would only take a couple to scuttle accepting the Stimulus package. And I don’t know if they can take it piece-meal. Plus Jindal might be able to veto and require a higher voting requirement. Plus some states automatically require a Supermajority for budget items.

It would be a real tragedy for Louisiana if Jindal did this…but it puts a whole lot of pressure on his State level Republicans. If the recession hits hard down there people could really get desperate.

Took away his passport, too. At least the one that they know about. I hope they have pictures of him at all departure points…’cause he might have some foreign passports, too.

Shoe thrower ought to be prosecuted for missing Bush.

If a shoe-throwing is the worst punishment Busholini receives for his criminality, it’ll be a sad, sad day for the Republic…

Just one of the many reasons that State Secrets is such a battle. Many know the truth of what went on; they will not speak until they have protection. This is going to be a tough one for Obama to try to explain away.

..maybe..

http://www.bollyn.info/home/ar…..-surfaces/