this has gotten me thinking. If you were to talk about a country establishing a “digital insider presence” on computer networks looking to collect sensitive financial data, you could be describing this alleged hacker or … the United States’ wiretappers. And that’s even before we threaten to wiretap the SWIFT database so we can take what SWIFT won’t just give us.

The internal debate within the Administration over when and how to draw down in Afghanistan, and with how many troops, has begun. As I understand it, General David Petraeus will offer a range of options, and the national security team will assess them, with Obama having the final decision.

Sadly the actions of one person are being used to cast aspersions on the entire Wikileaks organization. CNN is the latest to conflate the man who started the work and the organization itself.

Good news for Romney. The latest Gallup polls shows him ahead in a key demographic, older voters. If they come to the polls, that will make it easier for him to clench the Republican nomination.

You know things are bad for Republican candidate when his plan for cutting trillions in taxes is panned on Fox “News”. Tim Pawlenty, too boring to get any attention except with a radical plan that is too radical for Republicans.

Throughout the health care reform debate, Republicans loved describe the U.S. healthcare system as “the best in the world.” I guess the British just don’t know what they’re missing.

Management and Training Corporation (MTC) runs an ICE detention center in town, which recently had to lay off 120 employees because it could not secure the contracts it had intended on getting, meaning they would have less prisoners than anticipated. But what’s even worse is that MTC for years had not been paying these employees their required wages. They were being paid $8-9 an hour (basically minimum wage, to supervise criminals) for nearly 5 years, during which time they were supposed to have been paid at least $14.50 per hour.

Larry Summers now tells us we need another $200 billion in extended payroll tax cuts. He explains that this is the nature of recessions connected with financial collapse, that this inherently crushes demand and it takes a lot of money — from borrowing and spending — and a long time to build demand back up to the level at which economic growth is self sustaining. Well, no kidding, Larry. Except you pretended for two and half years that wasn’t true and the rest of us were stupid.

The crux of this dispute: Was Boeing’s decision to build their new plant in South Carolina just a case of the company wanting to be assured that there would be less union activity, and thus less chance that strikes would delay the production of the 787’s? Or was it done to weaken the power of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, the union representing 25,000 Boeing workers?

This is an ENORMOUS deal. Schneiderman is looking at the failure to properly convey notes and mortgages to the securitization trusts, which court records clearly show was practically the industry standard during the housing bubble. If this plays out as it could, Schneiderman could declare these securities invalid under New York trust law. There would be a lawsuit in response, of course, but the exposure of Bank of America for this claim is massive, potentially bigger than their capital reserves.