Sunday, February 22, 2009

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EU leaders back sweeping financial regulations Top
BERLIN — European leaders backed sweeping new regulations for financial markets and hedge funds at a summit Sunday in Berlin as politicians and nations scrambled to tame the global economic crisis. German Chancellor Angela Merkel hosted heads of state and finance ministers from Europe's largest economies to try to establish a common European position on economic reforms before an April 2 summit of the Group of 20 nations. "All financial markets, products and participants including hedge funds and other private pools of capital which may pose a systematic risk must be subjected to appropriate oversight or regulation," Merkel said in a statement released on behalf of the summit members, following the talks. Top officials from Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, Spain, the Netherlands and Czech Republic agreed on seven key points during their one-day meeting in Berlin, the statement said. "A clear message and concrete action are necessary to engender new confidence in the markets and to put the world back on a path toward more growth and employment," Merkel said. But the call for blanket global regulation was sure to be resisted by the financial industry and may not be welcomed completely by other members of the G-20, which in addition to European nations includes the United States, China, Japan and developing nations like India and Brazil. European leaders backed Merkel's call for a "charter of sustainable economic activity" to reduce economic imbalances and stabilize financial markets. The charter would subject all financial market activities around the globe to regulation, including credit rating agencies. Merkel said the charter would be "based on market forces but prevent excess and ultimately lead to the establishment of a global governance structure." The leaders also agreed to strengthen the IMF and to support doubling its funds. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said the IMF needs some $500 billion and called for a "global New Deal" to be adopted to help right the world economy. "The IMF's resources must be doubled to enable it to help its members swiftly and flexibly when they experience difficulties with respect to their balance of payments," Merkel said. Other key points included adopting sanctions to safeguard against tax havens and urging banks to keep larger reserves of capital. Officials said a final copy of the summit agreement would not be circulated Sunday, in order to allow European Union members not present to view it first. The ideas were based on an agenda adopted by the G-20 in November and will be taken up by the European Council on March 19-20, then presented to the G-20 meeting April 2 in London. President Barack Obama and other top world leaders are scheduled to attend the London summit. ___ Associated Press Writer Michael Fischer contributed to this report. More on European Union
 
Stephen C. Rose: Further Thoughts on "Our Crisis In Not Economic" Top
By Stephen C. Rose OUR CRISIS NOT ECONOMIC The original is in blockquotes. The best way to understand the current economic crisis is to see that it is not economic. It is political, but even that designation is inadequate. It is a seismic evolutionary fissure that has yet to be fully identified. This post, and links to a few other exploratory posts on this blog, will seek to outline what I believe to be the prominent features of our situation and the likely avenues for a move into the future. Though this was written first a year ago, it remains true. Virtually no one, including the experts, claim to know the future. Some sense of the future is necessary for any confidence to take root. We are watching the Dow continue to sink. I believe it is partly due to the probability that many businesses are unable to determine whether the products they produce are relevant to a future they cannot grasp. Any influential text on economics, philosophy or history has claimed that it understands what a crisis is and what the way out is. The premise of this post and of the Pattern Language posts I am writing and of this blog generally is that the age of oil is ending. This is hardly an original thought. But I also assume that the age of the automobile is ending. This means that the entire structure of global development, which emulates the United States, is doomed if it continues this emulation. And that we in the US are economically doomed if we assume that we can build an economy on growth, on the continuation of an automobile economy and on the premise that people in the future are going to wish to purchase separate dwellings at prices approaching the values they had when the prices started free falling. In the broadest sense the evolutionary change now taking place represents a battle between the predatory instincts that Veblen flagged with such prescience more than a century ago and the workmanlike instincts that he so admired. It is odd to me that people will read Baudrillard who builds on Veblen and never turn a page of the original texts which can be found, happily now, online . The reason the current crisis is not economic is that our economy is by any measure unsustainable. If this is true, then the sort of economics 101 thinking of Rachel Maddow and everyone else who believes we can spend our way out of this is either a palliative or a desperately erroneous assumption. Sustainability is a nice green code word to which many give lip service. But at root it is an invitation to a scaled back way of life and that is hardly what people want. Our crisis involves reckoning with our human battle between lassitude and the proactive responsibility needed to deal with real and significant change in the way we live. Sustainability means we build and design in such a way that our goal is anti-growth. Of rather that our idea of growth has morphed from an emphasis on the acquisition of more and more to the conscious making do with less and less. Not that we do not grow as human beings or as communities or spiritually. All these nice realities are enhanced by the change we are going through. Consider a simple example. We build houses now that are hugely expensive and even more so when we consider all the things we put in them. What if we were to concentrate on producing customized spaces which would be our own rooms and which would not require us to purchase beds, couches, chairs, desks and such, because they would be built in. What sort of disruption would this cause in a company that is entirely devoted to creating household objects that would become obsolete through such an understanding? Do you see the problem that is facing businesses? What do they make if the whole world of growth is melting before their eyes? And it is. We cannot survive by hallowing indebtedness ad infinitum, both as a government panacea and an individual or family lifestyle or as a prominent feature of much business. A culture of indebtedness is not sustainable. This raises an entirely different but related issue. We hear that our entire economy depends on debt. That banks have functioned by enlarging their risk to many times the funds they possess and that wealth itself is dependent on this legerdemain. We have apparently lived through a time when this shaky premise was raised to the fifth or tenth power by wildly greedy and deluded financial dealers. And now it seems we are trying to vaporize the resulting paper debt with real paper which we call money. Does this not have the feel of confronting one fiction with another, in the hope that we will somehow restart the economy? But wait. The economy cannot be made to work because it is built not only on untenable debt but on untenable notions that a growth economy can continue to function in our world. It will function only if we translate capitalism and growth into a concerted effort to make sustainability the value we build in to everything. We cannot survive by palliative tweaks to our current structures under the label of "green." Current advertisements for companies that claim to be going green may lull us into believing that we can survive by moving, this way and that, among existing options such as various fuels. The current and likely future of the green economy, fueled by modest but significant investments, will be to try to shore up the structures of our metrosprawl, commuter, debt-based society. This will not do anything more than create a false sense of security while wasting time before the ultimate decision is made -- to end the dominance of the private car, to end the dictatorship of debt, and to begin creating human settlements that have the elements needed to enhance life and sustain it safely and creatively. Even if we could prop up the current system, it would not accomplish the best purpose of an economic system, which is to make it possible for all within it to achieve a measure of relief from poverty, illness and ignorance. Elsewhere I have argued that our global system is one of benign genocide, fuelled by the partnership of capitalism and philanthropy. The beginning arguments for this position can be found by searching out the relevant keywords on this blog. The point here is that all talk of Millennium goals and of reducing global poverty, ignorance and disease depends on a stiff-arm NO of all the world to a metrosprawl future. Monte Python was right in The Life of Brian to portray hell as a parking lot. At its best, our global system can be described as an amalgamation of capitalism (widely understood) and philanthropy, defined as the sum total of activities we engage in under the label not-for-profit,. Including educational and medical institutions as well as the plethora of associations and NGOs and governmentl agencies that are non-profit (sic). Our current system is a faltering machine whose product is benign genocide -- which I define as the sum total of global deaths that result from the way the system is set up. Any honest redoing of our global economy must at least recognize why the current mechanisms fail. Or else we shall be condemned to self-delusion. believing than incremental tweaks are a real solution and celebrating achievements whose celebration is in itself a cause for tears. The answer to the conundrum created by acknowledging that our present economic system is unsustainable, is an integral politics which is providentially the potential of an Obama candidacy. Such a politics can communicate that the solution to our problems is not merely a matter of moving beyond religious, racial, gender and cultural barriers, but by creating a culture of integral communication of the elements needed to conquer problems and of integral projects which exemplify such behavior in action. If Barack Obama is elected, he will be a leader fit for these times. He will, I believe, propose not that we compete to bring our economy back but that we move to a post-oil, post capitalist-philanthropic, post-debt-enslaved, post-consumer culture based on a reclamation of key values that have been sliced and diced in our Balkanized intellectual environment. The primacy of the individual. This is not conservative or liberal, it is simply the truth. The primacy of public space as a measure of cultural attainment. The creation of new human settlements based on a wedding of high technology and values implicit in Christopher Alexander's pattern language. These I envision as experimental nodes where groups live independent of the need to drive cars. The understanding that being green involves doing so on a scale that requires what the New Testament calls new wine skins. In other words, it makes sense to build something green and integral from bottom to top that can be home and workplace and cultural space for from five to ten-thousand. Green yes. Beyond green and integral. Absolutely. Changing the world. Understood. A concluding thought: The actual material elements needed to create the sort of settlement I envision, car-free, eco-sufficient and integral would create a blue-print for a completely revived business and even a changed business culture, if that is possible. Elements would be all of the new products needed to create a completely workable matrix for a settlement one mile in diameter -- including 1. All the elements needed to enable recycling for the entire community, power from all sources for the entire community, and security for the entire community. 2. All of the forms and materials to make the forms of the lego blocks needed to enable the creation of customized spaces that are transportable as containers are today and which can be assembled onsite within the matrix. This is virtually fifty new industries. 3. All of the work needed to transform all existing institutions so that they can reconstitute themselves as nodes within new human settlements. This means the creation of new models for a dispersed education, a dispersed health, a dispersed corporation and so forth model. Need I go further? All one has to do is to think beyond the dominance of the car and to the need for integral and eco-sufficient communities to begin to imagine a way to reconstitute capitalism not as an engine of infinite growth of the sort we have known, but as the engine of sustainable societies. I will go this far. Paul Krugman won a Nobel for his acuity in economics. In a recent NY Times column, he suggests that the economy will rebound when housing and cars become more marketable. I am saying that that day will not come. It may come in some partial and even artificial way. But Krugman is wrong not because there might not be some recovery, but because he still believes that the future belongs to housing of the sort we have in our metrosprawl and to automobiles of any sort. Anders Nygren long ago wrote a salient essay on the role of the self-evident in history. It is self-evident today that automobiles and detached houses no longer have the capacity to drive an economy. But for this very reason it is completely ignored. It is self evident that, like ponzis, growth economies are unsustainable. But no one seems to pay it any mind. http://stephencrose.wordpress.com/ Send a Personal Email to Stephen C. Rose More on Paul Krugman
 
Sasha Obama Basketball Game Gives Parents Break Top
KENSINGTON, Md. — He's got a financial summit Monday and a big speech to Congress on Tuesday, so what better way for President Barack Obama to take a break than by watching daughter Sasha play basketball? The president and first lady Michelle Obama took a motorcade from the White House to an elementary school in Kensington, Md., Saturday to watch their 7-year-old daughter play. It was about a 20-mile drive from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue to the school. The Obamas stayed for more than an hour at Kensington Parkwood Elementary School, located in a Maryland neighborhood. The president, wearing khakis, and the first lady went for a low-key arrival. Soon after the family arrived at the school, only a small crowd of parents stood with children, some bouncing basketballs on the school's driveway. But people soon caught on _ by the time the Obamas' were leaving, dozens were lined up along the driveway to see them depart. The Kensington school isn't far from Sasha's school, the Sidwell Friends School in nearby Bethesda, where she's in the second grade. Older daughter Malia is a fifth-grader at Sidwell's middle school in the District of Columbia. In a television interview earlier this month, Obama said Sasha decided she wanted to join a basketball team, sharing the love of the sport with her father. The president regularly plays the sport in his free time. More on Obama Family
 
Alan Rosenblatt: A Quick Comment About Sunday Morning TV Ads Top
You can tell a lot about who advertisers think is watching TV shows by where they choose to advertise. Just think about what programs get the Viagara commercials... sports. And the Sunday morning talk shows are no exception. While I caught one ad this morning in support of the Employee Free Choice Act (for more info on this bill, see ItsYourFreeChoice.org ), it is the energy ads that always get my blood boiling. Leaving aside the Pickens Plan ads promoting wind, solar and natural gas, the ad that caught my attention this morning comes from the American Petroleum Institute (API) and its website EnergyTomorrow.org . Its is painfully obvious that the API wants us to continue to burn oil. Its how their members make money. But the underlying assumptions API makes are disturbing and their ads appeal to the most shallow of arguments. First, they continue to promote the idea that we should expand oil production because we need the energy. But that clearly ignores the fact that if we burn oil at the rates we do today, if we strive to use all of the oil until we run out, we will kill our planet and us along with it. But this morning's ad really irked me. API is telling us that drilling for more oil offshore isn't so bad, because modern oil platforms can drill across a 40 mile radius, thus reducing the eyesore of too many platforms on the horizon. Really, they think our concern is about how the platforms look?! Sure, we don't want to make the oceans off our shores ugly, but our concerns about offshore drilling are MUCH more substantial than shallow concerns about vanity and views. Regardless of whether the infrastructure is above the water or under the water, we are still talking about drilling large chunks of the ocean floor. An oil leak in the infrastructure underwater is still bad. Burning more oil is still bad. This is not about beauty, it is about environmental sustainability. It is time that the API stop making shallow arguments. It is time that they stop insulting our intelligence. It is time to talk about transitioning away from oil and towards renewable energy that poses significantly less risk to our planet. It is time that the API enter the 21st century. More on Energy
 
Beijing Building Boom Goes Bust Top
Reporting from Beijing -- "Empty," says Jack Rodman, an expert in distressed real estate, as he points from the window of his 40th-floor office toward a silver-skinned prism rising out of the Beijing skyline. "Beautiful building, but not a single tenant. "Completely empty. "Empty." More on China
 
Rahm: Ben Nelson The One Who Held Up Stimulus Top
Rahm Emanuel's office, which is no more than a three-second walk from the Oval Office, is as neat as a Marine barracks. On his desk, the files and documents, including leatherbound folders from the National Security Council, are precisely arranged, each one parallel with the desk's edge. During a visit hours before Congress passed President Barack Obama's stimulus package, on Friday, February 13th, I absently jostled one of Emanuel's heavy wooden letter trays a few degrees off kilter. He glared at me disapprovingly. Next to his computer monitor is a smaller screen that looks like a handheld G.P.S. device and tells Emanuel where the President and senior White House officials are at all times. Over all, the office suggests the workspace of someone who, in a more psychologized realm than the West Wing of the White House and with a less exacting job than that of the President's chief of staff, might be cited for "control issues." More on President Obama
 
Nicole Richie Pregnant Again Top
Here they go again! Nicole Richie and boyfriend Joel Madden are expecting another child, barely a year after the arrival of daughter Harlow Winter Kate Madden last Jan. 11. In a message on the Web site of Good Charlotte, the band he fronts, Madden, 29, wrote, "I am so happy to tell everyone that Harlow is going to be a big sister! God has truly blessed my family. Hope [you're] all feeling as good as i am right now." Madden's message is titled "Better than winning an OSCAR!" More on Celebrity Kids
 
Schwarzenegger Filming Cameo In Stallone Flick, Rooting For Rourke At Oscars Top
WASHINGTON — He said he'd be back _ and soon he will be. California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger says he'll be shooting a cameo appearance soon for a new movie by friend Sylvester Stallone. Schwarzenegger calls Stallone a terrific director and writer, and a great actor. Schwarzenegger says that since he became governor, he has done three cameos in films when friends have asked him to appear. As for the Oscars, Schwarzenegger calls "The Reader" one of the best movies he's ever seen and that he hopes friend Mickey Rourke does well for his turn in "The Wrestler." And Schwarzengger's favorite political movie: "The Candidate," with Robert Redford. The governor appeared on ABC's "This Week." More on Award Season
 
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Michael Scott: New Board Of Education Chief Inspires 'Guarded Optimism' Top
Public schools advocacy groups and education experts are guardedly optimistic that a new president of the Chicago Board of Education will be able to smooth out community relations during a particularly contentious time. Rufus Williams, the president of the board since 2006, is expected to resign soon, says Vanessa Hall, a spokeswoman for Mayor Richard M. Daley. Michael Scott, who was the president of the board from 2001 to 2006, is expected to take Williams' place, she said.
 
Burris Becomes Hot Issue In Emanuel Replacement Race, Quigley Jabs Fritchey Over His Role Top
In an interview, Cook County Commissioner Mike Quigley took a shot at state Rep. John Fritchey (D), who during the Jan. 8 testimony objected three times as Burris was being questioned: one about Burris' personal thoughts upon the governor's arrest; another about what he would have done if he were aware of a quid-pro-quo arrangement regarding the seat; and whether Burris had told party leaders if he'd run for the Senate seat in 2010. "This was the time to pour transparency through the process," Quigley said. "If [Fritchey] felt the need to protect him for what he might say or how bad it would look, then [Burris] should never have been the appointment." Fritchey has pushed back hard, accusing Quigley of a "shallow attempt to try to hoodwink the public."
 
Mark Sanford: Stimulus Supporters The "Real Fringe" Top
WASHINGTON — To take federal stimulus money for your state or not to take it. That is the big question for Democratic and Republican governors in town for the National Governor's Association meeting this weekend. Democrats claim those Republican governors who turn down money from the federal stimulus package are "fringe" Republicans eager to score political points. The head of the Republican governors says the Democrats are out of touch. Governors at the conference played down a split in Republican ranks over the stimulus plan, which will send billions to states for education, health care and transportation. Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, a likely 2012 presidential contender, has said he would reject a portion of the money aimed at expanding state unemployment insurance. Gov. Haley Barbour, R-Miss., said he was considering a similar move. Taking the unemployment dollars, he said, would force his state to eventually raise taxes when the stimulus money runs out, putting in place what he called an unfair tax on employers. "There is some (money) we will not take in Mississippi. ... We want more jobs. You don't get more jobs by putting an extra tax on creating jobs," Barbour told CNN's "State of the Union' on Sunday. Michigan's Democratic Gov. Jennifer Granholm said there are other states that want and need the new money. "We'll take it. We'll take your money." Gov. Mark Sanford, R-S.C., also has criticized the plan, as has Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the party's 2008 vice presidential nominee who traveled to Washington last month to press for her state's share of the money. Palin, busy with her state's legislative session, did not attend the NGA meeting. Florida GOP Gov. Charlie Crist, also a potential 2012 contender and strong supporter of the stimulus plan, said the criticism leveled by other Republicans wasn't rooted in politics. "I don't know that it's a partisan issue. It's different people, different CEOs _ governors _ who have a different perspective on how it would impact their states," Crist said in an interview. "I know it has a positive impact on Florida. A lot of that money has been paid to the federal treasury by my fellow Floridians and they deserve to get it back." At issue for Jindal and Barbour is a provision in the stimulus bill that could allow people ineligible for unemployment benefits to receive them anyway. That could eventually force a tax increase on employers, both governors have said. Some Democrats took a harder line at a press conference arranged by the Democratic Governors Association to praise Obama for his leadership on the stimulus. DGA Chairman Brian Schweitzer of Montana and Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley dismissed GOP detractors as "fringe" Republicans eager to score political points. "All of us are committed to working with President Obama to pull our nation's economy out of the ditch that George W. Bush ran it into," O'Malley said. "If some of the fringe governors don't want to do that, they need to step aside and not stand in the way of the nation's interests." The line drew a rebuke from Sanford, the Republican Governors Association chairman. "I think in this instance I would humbly suggest that the real fringe are those that are supporting the stimulus," Sanford said. "It is not at all in keeping with the principles that made this country great, not at all in keeping with economic reality, not in keeping with a stable dollar, and not in keeping with the sentiments of most of this country." ___ On the Net: National Governors Association: http://www.nga.org/
 
Lane Bryant Murder Site Clothing Donated To Charity Top
TINLEY PARK, Ill. (AP) -- Authorities say the piles of clothing that were inside the former Lane Bryant store in Tinley Park where five women were murdered in 2008 will be donated to a women's prison and two nonprofits in Chicago's southern suburbs. Tinley Park Mayor Ed Zabrocki said Saturday that Lane Bryant's parent company, Charming Shoppes Inc., is donating clothes that were in the front of the store, away from the crime scene. The donation is in addition to 150 coats that are being distributed Friday by the South-Southwest Suburban United Way. Those coats were also donated by Charming Shoppes. The clothes will go to the Dwight Correctional Center, a homeless agency called Together We Cope and the domestic violence nonprofit Crisis Center for South Suburbia. ___ Information from: Chicago Sun-Times, http://www.suntimes.com/index
 
US News Poll: Which Female Politician Should Run A Daycare Center? Top
Media Matters points out that US News & World Report has, for some reason, a poll on its website asking readers who they would prefer to run a daycare center for their kids: First Lady Michelle Obama, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, or Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. For what it's worth, Michelle Obama and Sarah Palin are neck and neck.
 
Nude Carnival Queen, Viviane Castro, Bodypaints Obama On Her Leg (NSFW PHOTO) Top
Brazilian carnival queen Viviane Castro parades with an image depicting President Barack Obama painted on her left leg during carnival celebrations in Sao Paulo, Brazil, Saturday, Feb. 21, 2009. Castro's stomach reads in Portuguese "for sale," a message she said represented the sale of Brazil's Amazon to the U.S. Photo from AP:
 
Hynes Endorses Feigenholtz In Emanuel Replacement Race Top
Illinois Comptroller Dan Hynes today will become the first statewide elected official to make an endorsement in the hotly contested race to replace former U.S. Rep. Rahm Emanuel. Hynes will endorse state Rep. Sara Feigenholtz over the other 11 candidates in the March 3 Democratic primary, citing her expertise in health care issues.
 
Obama Returns Churchill Bust To England: British Press Sees Snub Top
Has America's even- tempered new president already ruffled feathers in the land that spawned Borat and Benny Hill? That's certainly how the spiky British press responded after the White House sent back to the British Embassy a bust of Sir Winston Churchill that had occupied a cherished spot in President Bush's Oval Office. Intended as a symbol of transatlantic solidarity, the bust was a loaner from former British prime minister Tony Blair following the September 11 attacks. A bust of Abraham Lincoln--Obama's historical hero--now sits in its place. A White House spokesperson says the Churchill bust was removed before Obama's inauguration as part of the usual changeover operations, adding that every president puts his own stamp on the Oval Office. More on President Obama
 
Tim Giago: Indigeous People Ask: Where is the Outrage? Top
By Tim Giago (Nanwica Kciji) © 2009 Native American Journalists Foundation, Inc. February 23, 2009 The most anxious reactions by the Native victims of sexual abuse at Bureau of Indian Affairs and Indian mission boarding schools are: "Where in hell is the outrage?" It seems that most of America doesn't give a damn and news that should be on the front page of every major newspaper is strangely absent. Where in the hell is the outrage? Last week the Jesuits of Oregon Province in Alaska filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy. Why were they forced into this action? Because more than 60 lawsuits alleging sex abuse by Jesuit priests have been filed against them and in all, there are 200 known claimants in the five western states covered by the Province. Most of the victims are from Alaska. It is contended by many of the abused Natives of Alaska that long before it became a state it was the dumping ground for pedophile priests. For a couple of generations the stigma attached to the abuse kept the victims silent, but when the roof fell in on the Anglican Church in Canada and the horrifying details of sexual abuse against the Natives of that country came to light, the buried secrets of abuse by several churches, the Mormons, Methodists, Episcopalians and others went unpublished, but not undocumented. Ken Roosa, the attorney representing the abuse victims in Alaska said he expects more claimants to come forward. "By the time this is over, it wouldn't surprise me to see the number double. And these all will of course involve childhood molestation by Jesuit priests and brothers, or people who were being supervised by Jesuit priests and brothers." The Society of Jesus, Oregon Province, isn't talking publicly about filing for bankruptcy. In a press release the Society said it believes Chapter 11 reorganization is the only way all of the claimants can receive a fair settlement. The Jesuits say they have less than $5 million in assets and their liabilities come to nearly $62 million. Roosa said those figures will be a major point of contention during the bankruptcy proceedings. He said, "There will be debates about whether the Jesuits own the universities and high schools, whether those universities and high schools are assets that can be held accountable or used to pay the claims. All of that will be argued before the bankruptcy judge." Elsie Boudreau, Yu'pik Eskimo and Alaska Native, a sexual abuse victim who sued a priest and the church in a separate lawsuit and won, said of the bankruptcy filing by the Jesuits, "The day has come for Native people to free ourselves from the bondages of shame and secrecy that kept us powerless within the Catholic Church because we are no longer a people sitting idly on the sidelines while Jesuits continue their deceptive maneuverings to shield heinous crimes of sexual abuse of our innocent children. We are speaking loudly and clearly." "The era of gross and deliberate human rights violations by those neglectful and careless men hiding behind the cloak of Christ has come to an end. We, as a Native people, will no longer tolerate the scarring of our souls by those entrusted to protect and nurture our spirituality," she said. Clearly upset by all she has been through over the years, Boudreau said, "The Oregon Province filing for bankruptcy is a clear admission on their part that our Native people have been the recipients of an evil so great, so inconceivable, so out of this world, that it would bring Jesus Christ to tears." Boudreau has made it her life's mission to encourage other Native victims of abuse at the hands of the Catholic Church to put away any guilt or fear they may feel and to speak out. She said, "Our ancestors' wisdom tells us we do not treat our people that way - we take care of our people. Why then would we tolerate the abuse of those entrusted to save our souls? It is time for Native people to hold on to our teachings and secure a place of honor and respect for our children for generations to come." In the warm climes of San Diego, CA, the Diocese of San Diego, is about to make an appearance in bankruptcy court in order to minimize the damages done to it by clergy accused of sexually abusing Native children there. And so the beat goes on. Long hidden crimes by the Catholic Church and its Jesuit priests, brothers and their minions are now revealed to the light. The deep, dark secrets now out in the open are apparently still to gross and vile to be stomached by the rest of America. When the victims of these heinous crimes were white the horror was on every front page of every major newspaper and the news of every television station in America. When it comes to Native Americans and Alaskans, where is the outrage? (Tim Giago, an Oglala Lakota, was born, raised and educated on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. He was the founder and publisher of Indian Country Today, the Lakota Times, and the Lakota Journal. He can be reached at najournalist@msn.com)
 
Schwarzenegger To GOP Governors: Give Me Your Unwanted Stimulus Money Top
While some Republican governors with presidential ambitions struggle to balance their state's budgetary needs with their own ideological opposition to the stimulus package, others don't find themselves feeling nearly as constrained. Appearing on ABC's This Week with George Stephanopoulos, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger giddily embraced the idea that more money would be available for California should his GOP colleagues -- like Govs. Mark Sanford of South Carolina and Bobby Jindal of Louisiana -- refuse stimulus funds. "Well, Governor Sanford says that he does not want to take the federal stimulus package money. And I'll say to him, I'll take it," Schwarzenegger said. "I'm more than happy to take his money or any other governor in this country that doesn't want to take this money. I'll take it, because we in California need it. I think it's a terrific package. I think if you ask a thousand people for their opinion, what is their ideal stimulus package, you will have a thousand different answers. So everyone's is a little different. I think he's done a great job and I think California benefits tremendously from that $80 billion of tax benefits there, for around $35 billion. There are other advantages: $45 billion of money that go to transportation, to education, to health care, all those different areas. There's even some money that could benefit our revenues or, I should say, our budget itself...." Schwarzenegger, of course, faces sharply different circumstances than some of his Republican brethren, not least because he is constitutionally restricted from running for the White House. The governor just went through a messy and dramatic budget process in which he was forced to raise income and sales taxes and slash spending in a variety of places. Other governors face similar, albeit smaller economic crises. And, when it comes to the stimulus, they are trying to walk the difficult line between fiscal conservatism and budgetary needs. Gov. Jindal announced this past week that he will take some portion of federal funds but would decline stimulus money that would expand state unemployment insurance coverage.
 
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Beverly Hills Recession: Pain Trickles Upwards In Ritzy Zip Code Top
The Lamborghinis and Bentleys still cruise Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills. But these days, visitors to California's most famous ZIP code are more likely to take note of the empty storefronts and deep-discount signs. Call it recession, 90210 style. More on Recession
 
Jindal Writing His Own Response To Obama Top
If you're tuned in Tuesday night to watch Gov. Bobby Jindal's response to President Barack Obama's first address to Congress, you'll be hearing his own words - with a bit of "tweaking" from national Republicans. Melissa Sellers, the governor's communications director, says he began working on his response at mid-week and might continue touching it up through the weekend. More on Bobby Jindal
 
Jay Mandle: The Politics of Bank Nationalization Top
As a response to the financial crisis, the Bush Administration's Troubled Asset Recovery Program (TARP) was woefully inadequate. But its implementation brought to a close a nearly thirty year period during which market deregulation was the touchstone of economic policy. Now, market fundamentalism is dead. As a result of the economic free-fall we are experiencing, the question being asked is whether the government's involvement in the economy is adequately focused or large enough, not whether it should be undertaken at all. Governmental intervention is the new flavor of the month. But as important as this shift is, it masks an even more important continuity. To obtain office, elected officials still require the financial support of the country's economic elite. In the past, these contributors had the goal of ensuring that their businesses were left alone to pursue their private interests. Now the tide has turned and their viability requires government assistance. The central actor in this flip-flop has been Wall Street. The financial sector used its campaign contributions to advance economic deregulation. Today, Wall Street continues to be the single most important source of political donations and therefore influence. But now it lobbies for bail-outs, not self-reliance. Despite the bailouts however, the economic crisis has continued to intensify. This is largely because the financial sector remains dysfunctional. This problem must be solved so that credit can start to flow again. The most straight-forward way to accomplish this objective - an approach the Obama Administration resists - is to nationalize insolvent banks, reorganize them, and then sell them to new owners. Doing so would create a fresh start. And while such an approach obviously would be costly to the government, it would create banks with sound balance sheets and also avoid rewarding those responsible for the present fiasco. The financial sector vehemently opposes nationalization. To date it has gotten its way. Instead of taking over giant but weak banks, the Obama Administration has chosen instead to provide them with funds in the hope that massive injections of money will rejuvenate them. It is unclear whether this approach - unsuccessful at the moment - will ever work. But what is not in doubt is that the political system still is providing the big campaign funders with their policy preferences. In this context, the need to reduce the political clout of the financial sector and democratize the political funding system takes on an urgency that can hardly be exaggerated. Clean elections - the public funding of electoral campaigns - have long been thought of as a "good government" process issue. The tendency has been to relegate to it to the political back-burner, especially in a time of crisis. No longer. It now has to be thought of as our best available means to work our way out of the economic debacle. What is clear is that we need to engage in a wide-ranging and difficult political debate concerning our economic future. The market failures that confront us are the worst that we have seen since the Great Depression. If nationalizing banks or its functional equivalent is to occur, the terms of our political discussions must not be biased by any individual sector, and particularly not by a self-interested financial community. Nationalizing failed banks will not be an easy sell. The country has had a long romance with markets and the residue of that infatuation persists among significant segments of the population. Such a scheme will evoke a conditioned response of hostility. But dire economic circumstances may well erode that opposition. No one knew before the 1930s that a New Deal would be acceptable to - even desired by - the American people. The 1920s after all, like our current period, was a period of retreat from the progressive reforms of the early decades of the century. It is very likely that today's conventional wisdom too concerning the limits of policy initiatives will be radically altered as the economy continues to fail. The danger here is that a failure to accept nationalization, joined with a protracted continuation of the current bail-out strategy, risks producing a counter-productive populism. The threat is that taxpayers will rebel against seeing their money thrown into a financial black-hole that produces little or no positive economic response. If such a rebellion occurred, it is at least possible that an atavistic anger could impede the search for financial viability and might even end up with a return to some form of market fundamentalism. After all, if the government botches the job, what choice is there? As presently structured, our political system is ill-equipped to deal effectively with the economic crisis. To date, the Obama Administration's response to it all too clearly reflects the limited range of options that political funders will tolerate. Widening the policy alternatives requires that wealth no longer dictate the political agenda. Public funding of electoral campaigns - especially at the Congressional level - is critical in order to allow us to grapple effectively with the economic crisis.
 
Oscar Fashion Retrospective: What The Men (And Their Dates) Wore (SLIDESHOW) Top
Compared to the hoopla surrounding what the women wear, male Oscar nominees have it pretty easy. What we do pay attention to is who they bring (and what they wear) and, at most, we wonder what's going on with their hair. (See Brad Pitt circa 1996.) Here's a look back at this year's nominees for Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor at Oscar ceremonies of years past. Not pictured (photos were not available on AP or Getty): Richard Jenkins (nominated for Best Actor for "The Visitor"), Frank Langella (nominated for Best Actor in "Frost/Nixon"), and Michael Shannon (nominated for Best Supporting Actor in "Revolutionary Road"). *Check out what this year's female nominees have worn in years past* SLIDESHOW: (Photos from AP and Getty) More on Award Season
 
TV SoundOff: Sunday Talking Heads Top
Good morning and welcome to Your Sunday Morning Liveblog, the Huffington Post's exclusive weekly report on the thermodynamic exchange that occurs between televised gaseous discharges and what remains of my intelligence. My name is Jason. Today I will be pulling double liveblog duty here. This morning, we chronicle the gnashings and lamentations of the political press. This evening, you can join actor and comedian Taylor Negron, Jezebel blogger and Crappy Hourist Megan Carpentier, and myself in our liveblog of the Academy Awards ceremony. Bookmark this link for your future use . Between this liveblog and that one, I am rushing off to see Milk , the last of the best pitcure nominees I haven't seen. Seeing Milk may alter my state of mind on this, but for the moment, I'm predicting that the winners will be Cruz, Ledger, Winslet, Rourke, Danny Boyle, and Slumdog Millionaire . I am hoping, however, that the winners will be Henson, Downey, Winslet, Jenkins, David Fincher, and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button , plus a special award to Sam Rockwell for being the best thing in every movie he is in, why not. Anyway, let's get rolling on this Sunday nonsense. As always, leave a comment, send an email , follow me on Twitter , and sleep in as I die a thousand tiny deaths. Oh. Man On Wire . That should totally win, also. FOX NEWS SUNDAY Today on FNS, a roundtable of governors and a roundtable of pundits, talking about "race." GAH. Wallace says, OH NOES, LOOKIT THE STOCK MARKET, responding to the economy, and to Tim Geithner. I have a range of stupendous reactions to Tim Geithner as well! Trust me! But the stock market is not the economy, nor is it an indicator of overall quality of life. But the big number, it scares us! Anyway, Mark Sanford is not taking the stimulus money! Or he's saying he isn't, and counting on his legislature to overrule him. Guess we won't be seeing him cutting any ribbons, anytime soon. Anyway, I'd say that Sanford is a massive fool, but South Carolina gets back $1.35 for every dollar they contribute to the common weal, so maybe it's time South Carolina reached for those bootstraps that form the basis of SO MANY LECTURES. Granholm is taking the money, smart lady. Pawlenty is too, despite criticisms of the bill. Pawlenty's playing this game at a different level that most people. Ed Rendell, who holds the Guinness Record for most email press releases sent to reporters for a single states' most trivial public works projects, is also taking the money. So look for some more emails on Pennsylvania's awesome wastewater innovations. Granholm wants to strategically invest stimulus money, rather than mindlessly grow her state budget, and I hope she's got the projects in mind to do just that. I'd have liked a bill that was serious about increasing the number of high-speed rail corridors in the U.S. Those rust belt cities could use the benefits that come to the interconnected "Acela-ization" that those of us in the Northeast enjoy. It'd be a boon in the south, too. But eight billion isn't that serious. And being lied to about a phantom train to Las Vegas isn't serious either. Though their should, absolutely, be an Acela that connects L.A. to Vegas. I mean, why not. Sanford thinks that giving money to the Smithsonian, or to build parks, is not stimulative, because he is a kindergartener. Pawlenty is more concerned about a bubble in our Treasury bills - like I said, he's playing at another level. This is why I think you'll see Sanford jump into a 2012 presidential campaign, and Pawlenty will bide his time. Granholm has obviously read the housing plan, which is a relief. Sanford, on the other hand thinks that there's a class of people who have "played by the rules" when in reality, there's simple a class of people who prospered on the back of an economy that was founded on the active search for people to make bad investments. Anyway, what Sanford prefers for South Carolina is for his residents to helplessly watch prices fall, borrowers default, toxic home inventories grow, around and around again and again, all the while as local governments crater, the more capable residents flee to healthier climes, leading to brain drain and a drop in productivity, all of which speeds all these vicious cycles, until South Carolina is a crime-ridden failed state with vacant homes and no pot to piss in. Yes. That would be awesome. Sanford needs to read some Steven Pearlstein is he thinks that bailout money always freezes capital. It really depends on the bank! Granholm calls Sanford an "outlier in economic theory." Of course, the reason that other countries are stepping forward to assist their auto industry is because the products are better, their business plans more sound, their industry's been extricated from the health care economy...Granholm is better off making the case for universal health care. Wow. Mark Sanford seems to believe that the textile industry in the South has recovered! It has: overseas. Ed Rendell actually decides to say something! Relatively smart, at that: Clinton brought down the deficit, and Rendell has used similar tactics to keep costs in line in Pennsylvania, all the while - TRUST ME - launching all sorts of public works projects! Again, TRUST ME ON THIS. MY GOD. I used to get those emails all the time. Sanford responds, "Garble garble blah, when I was in Congress we helped the deficit out too, and anyway: SOCIAL SECURITY AND MEDICARE ARE SCARY [crosses fingers, hoping no one remembers that while they were in power, his party came up with zero solutions for MediCare/Medicaid. Rendell is not running for president. Neither is Granholm, who was born in Canada. Pawlenty denies it. I don't care what Sanford does or says. I sort of hope he does run! Just last night, a source I place great trust and great enjoyment in made it sound like the Vetting of Mark Sanford is going to be very entertaining!! Meanwhile, the Fox Panel is talking about race. I've fallen behind in my Tivoing, to the extent that I am at risk of missing the start of THIS WEEK, which I must watch live, so I'm going to watch the discussion in fastforward. Juan Williams is talking, and now Brit Hume is scolding him. And Juan is yammering back. And Hume is all, "GAH. SERIOUSLY." Now I'm admiring Wallace's pocket square. Mara Liasson didn't wear some eye-blinding shade of frock today, which is nice. Mark Santelli is yelling, like a moron. I'll give Ryan Avent the floor on this one: But the housing bust is an entirely different game, for several key reasons. One is that homeowners -- even the responsible ones -- were highly leveraged in the housing market. A good buyer might have put down 20% of a home's value, only to watch prices fall by 40%. Most investors can't lose more in the market than they put in. That's not true for homebuyers. It's also the case that many homeowners were using housing wealth to directly fund consumption, something few stock market investors do. What this means is that the economic viability of tens of millions of households, many of which weren't even recent buyers or weren't particularly irresponsible in their purchases, is threatened by the housing bust. And this threat continues to grow, because housing is in a vicious cycle -- prices fall, households default, banks are forced to sell off their growing inventories of foreclosed homes at rock bottom prices, and this places pressure on a new round of owners, some of which will default, and so on. Meanwhile, there are all kinds of other nasty effects from massive foreclosures. Local and state budgets are devastated, forcing officials to pursue procyclical budget policies. Job markets suffer dislocations as residents leave. Pain spreads to commercial real estate and local retail. And loan losses continue to undermine the financial system. It's very serious indeed. But Santelli doesn't seem to understand this, and probably wouldn't care if he did. And we've caught up! Hume says that the economy will recover is the plans work, and won't if they don't. O-KAY! Hey kids! If you think that Citibank is solvent, at this very minute, please send me an email with the subject line: "ALSO: UNICORNS EXIST." Oh well, let's see what's going on over at ABC. THIS WEEK, WITH GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS Here's what I had to miss, in all the fastforwarding. Chris Blakely: I love it when William Kristol becomes outraged. Someone ought to make a Billy Kristol action figure: Captain Courage! This Sunday, Captain Courage is outraged about Eric Holders calling us a "nation of cowards" with respect to race. Inevitably, drop the word "coward," and Billy will soon be talking military in a heartbeat. We all know how much credibility Kristol has in that area. As this nation's leading chicken hawk pundit, nothing says courage like William Kristol calling out people for using the word "coward." One would almost think that Kristol believes his gig might be up; that someone finally sees Billy for what he really is. Let's face it, no Neo Con has shown more courage in the War on Terror than William Kristol. Every day from the cozy comfort of his DC trappings Captain Courage puts it on the line, boldly leading the charge and chastising cowardice where ever it might lurk -- even in the mirror. Ahh, yes. Hilariously, he also said, via Jeff Peckerman ...People should move to iraq if they cannot pay their mortgage. I'd point out that we've built an awesome social welfare system for those Iraqis, too. As soon as Kristol is safely vacationing in this paradise...outside the Green Zone, I'll start checking the condo market in Mosul, believe me! Meanwhile, Arnold Schwarzenegger is touting the fact that his state somehow emerged from the dysfunctional morass of their budgeting chaos. I wait and wait and wait until he gets to the key issue...there you go: WHOSE IDEA WAS IT TO REQUIRE A 2/3 SUPERMAJORITY TO PASS A BUDGET? Honestly? That's just insane. California, how do you guys do it? Gail Collins, in the New York Times , just delciously riffed on all of this. WITH KOLCHAK THE NIGHT STALKER REFERENCES. Anyway, Arnold is taking the stimulus money as well. GS mentions Bobby Jindal's complaints over unemployment insurance. May as well drop some science: Ryan Powers : But it is not clear why participating in the expanded unemployment insurance program would result in tax increases for business. By Jindal's own estimate, the recovery package would have funded his state's unemployment expansion for three years, at which point the state could -- if it chose to do so -- phase out the program. As New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin suggested earlier today, perhaps Jindal's presidential ambitions are "clouding" his judgement. "I think he's been tapped as the up-and-coming Republican to petition a run for president the next time it goes around. So he has a certain vernacular, and a certain way he needs to talk right now," Nagin said. Arnold is very much in favor of greater cooperation between the parties in Washington, and that Obama's clarity should be met with calmness and clarity, even in opposition. (Instead of, let's say, inviting human-joke Joe The Plumber to address your caucus.) I think comity and colmness is great, but I'd rather have a tough debate than weak-willed tacking to "bipartisanship." I mean, what's the point in having a Congress is their default position is to work to pass weak bills? Better to have strong cases made, a winner, a loser, and the opportunity to lay out your case on referendum if the losers end up being right. Arnold believes that America cannot "nationalize" a bank, because surely we can come up with another, more exceptional sounding word for that. Arnold is also, like, the biggest booster the Obama administration could ask for. "Be patient!" "They're just getting warmed up!" OK! Can't wait to see, say, Mary Schapiro regulate the nutsack out of Wall Street once she's WARMED UP. I mean: let's maybe toss Larry Summers in a microwave or something! Let's introduce some heat to the body of Tim Geithner with a shiatsu massage, or something. Arnold's prescription for restoring the GOP? "Listen to the people," and do what they want. That's a good way for a single individual to get re-elected. I think that parties benefit when they successfully build the case for what is needed, even if it comes at the expense of what is "wanted." But, look: I think Arnold is closer to the truth than, say Michael Steele, who is going to revive the GOP with Hip-hop Jamz! Arnold picks the Reader as his Oscar favorite. OH NOES! Harvey Weinstein has gotten to Arnold! I mean...THE READER....it was all right. But it's so far my least favorite. And yeah, I'm rooting for Winslet, but she should have won for LITTLE CHILDREN. Arnold likes THE CANDIDATE, too. Flomax commercial! Time to show off what I can do, still, in that regard! Speaking of urinary problems, let's talk bank nationalization! What does George Will, WHO JUST MAKES UP WHATEVER THE HELL HE WANTS TO SAY , say? "Blarrgh, socialism! Blarrgh, socialism? Blarrgh, maybe?" Suzy Welch thinks that any nationalization should be preceded by a confidence-boosting love-in, and perhaps the development of NEW WORDS. Paul Krugman points out that we're nationalizing banks already, like it's going out of style. Oh, and as Nouriel Rubini just pointed out: IT'S NOT GOING OUT OF STYLE. NOT BY A LONG SHOT. Suzy Welch is still yammering: "BUT TEH PERCEPTIONZ! OH WOE!" George Will says the taxpayer should get something approaching equity. I agree, yes, preferred stock, voting stake, the whole nine. Let's see what we can do. At the same time, George Will, I remind you, is George Will, WHO JUST MAKES UP WHATEVER THE HELL HE WANTS TO SAY . George Will, I wish, and hope, that the housing crisis truly is limited a "few counties in five states." Suzy Welch: "BUT THE PANICKS! THE PERCEPTIONS! THE YELLING!" Roubini and Krugman school Santelli on interconnected economies and the vicious cycle and how a crap-ton of the people perceived to have "broken the rules" are actually people who've been downsized, laid-off, and who have had pressure placed on them by everyone else's failure. I only wish they wouldn't spare us the informative lecture on the Brief and Lamentable World Of Mortgage-backed Securities that both of these guys could provide. Suzy Welch contributes a great metaphor: "It's MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS, everyone stuck a knife into the victim." Oh, if you haven't seen MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS, yet, uhm...SPOILER ALERT. "Assessing blame is not sterile, because you learn lessons from the future," says George Will, WHO JUST MAKES UP WHATEVER THE HELL HE WANTS TO SAY . George Will, WHO JUST MAKES UP WHATEVER THE HELL HE WANTS TO SAY , says that the Obama budget will be, I guess, more honest than most but still BS because it won't be properly capturing the liabilities of entitlement programs on the balance sheet, an old and brilliant trick of government budget hackery. What won't be happening on the Obama budget are any number of weird Bush administration budget gambits.
 

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