Eideard

With little fanfare, China’s currency has appreciated significantly in the last year and a half, leading many economists to question whether the exchange rate is still the most important economic issue for the United States to press with China’s leaders.

The rise of the renminbi — up 12 percent since June 2010 on an inflation-adjusted basis and 40 percent since 2005 — has helped American companies by effectively reducing the cost of their products in China. In the last two years, American exports to China have risen sharply…

In his Oval Office meeting on Tuesday with Xi Jinping, China’s vice president and likely next leader, President Obama discussed the currency as one of the trade practices that concerned the United States. That meeting — and tough public comments by Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. — continued a three-year campaign by the administration to convince Chinese leaders that a stronger currency is in their interest…

Administration officials and members of Congress have chosen not to emphasize the appreciation publicly, partly to keep pressure on China. Widespread discussion of the change could reduce support in Congress for a bill that would impose sanctions on Chinese imports to the United States and that Beijing strongly opposes…Passing legislation based on a lie doesn’t upset Congress or the White House at all.

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Yup. The Supreme Court says corporations are just people. Their money doesn’t count anymore than money from you or me.

Let me get my Wellies on before this crap gets any deeper.

C’mon, Mitch – put up or shut up!
Daylife/Getty Images used by permission

Warren Buffett is willing to put his money where his mouth is, if only congressional Republicans would join him.

The billionaire investor, in the new issue of Time magazine, says he will donate $1 to paying down the national debt for every dollar donated by a Republican in Congress. The only exception is Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell – for whom Buffett said he would go $3-to-$1.

The idea stems from a New York Times opinion piece Buffett wrote last August in which he said the rich ought to pay more taxes. It sparked an instant controversy, with some Washington conservatives calling on the 81-year-old “Oracle of Omaha” to voluntarily pay extra…

He went on to tell the magazine that what the country needed was a system that favored people who were not born investors.

“We need a tax system that takes very good care of people who just really aren’t as well adapted to the market system, and to capitalism, but are nevertheless just as good citizens, and are doing things that are of use in society,” he said.

Republicans will do anything to help their cause – except help the country.

Internal government documents show that Canada’s scientific and environmental bureaucracy does not share the Conservative government’s view that oil sands projects in Alberta have relatively little negative impact on the environment.

Postmedia News, a publisher that owns several major Canadian newspapers including The National Post in Toronto, obtained the previously confidential material through Canada’s access-to-information laws.

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Two leading members of the lyin’ bastards club

Republican presidential candidates Mitt Romney and Rick Perry have been accused of telling TV viewers blatant untruths about Barack Obama.

The candidates deny their TV commercials are deceitful and dishonest but both ads selectively quote the president to make it appear he is saying one thing when he is saying another.

The advertisements have been widely scorned for crossing a line from a longstanding practice of political campaigns pushing the truth to its limits, over to misrepresentation. One ad appears to show Obama admitting he will lose next year’s election if he talks about the economy. The other has him calling American workers lazy.

Romney’s campaign ad is airing on TV stations in New Hampshire, which holds its primary in January. It shows the president saying: “If we keep talking about the economy, we’re going to lose.” But Obama’s words were from his 2008 campaign, and he was quoting a statement by a strategist for his Republican opponent, John McCain, who was the one on the back foot over the economy.

Perry’s ad shows a short soundbite of Obama saying: “We’ve been a little bit lazy I think over the last couple of decades.”

The ad switches to Perry saying: “Can you believe that? That’s what our president thinks is wrong with America – that Americans are lazy. That’s pathetic.”

But a viewing of Obama’s full statement shows that he was saying the US government had been lazy in attracting foreign investment.

Darrell West, director of governance studies at the nonpartisan Brookings Institution in Washington, said that Romney and Perry had gone further than previous campaigns in misrepresenting the truth.

“Those ads are blatant misrepresentations,” he said. “They are much more egregious than what we’ve seen in the past. Typically candidates have tried to be close to the truth because they know journalists are paying attention, but with all the problems of the news industry politicians have concluded they can get away with murder…”

But West acknowledged that politicians are less concerned about being exposed by reporters. “Politicians think that the news media have completely collapsed, based on the financial crisis, and so they are acting as if there’s no accountability and they can say whatever they want,” he said.

West makes a great point about American journalists having as little integrity as Republican candidates. Since their employers are either corporations controlled by Republicans or clown who consider news as entertainment – or both – there’s little encouragement for any of them to point out any of the lies or liars.

Nearly 11 years after the 2000 presidential election brought the corruption idiosyncrasies of the United States’ Electoral College into full view, 62% of Americans say they would amend the U.S. Constitution to replace that system for electing presidents with a popular vote system. Barely a third, 35%, say they would keep the Electoral College.

Gallup’s initial measure of support for the Electoral College with this wording was conducted in the first few days after the 2000 presidential election in which the winner remained undeclared pending a recount in Florida. At that time, it was already clear that Democratic candidate Al Gore had won the national popular vote over Republican George W. Bush, but that the winner of the election would be the one who received Florida’s 25 Electoral College votes…

Republicans have grown somewhat more amenable to adopting a popular vote system over the past decade. Now, for the first time since 2000, the majority of Republicans favor it. Independents are not quite as supportive as Democrats of the popular vote system, but the majority of them have consistently favored it.

Additionally, Gallup finds little difference in the views of Americans of various age groups on changing how the country elects presidents. Support for amending the Constitution on this matter is 58% among 18- to 34-year-olds, 64% among 35-to 54-year-olds, and 62% among those 55 and older.

From 1967 through 1980, Gallup periodically asked Americans about replacing the Electoral College with a popular vote system using different question wording, and each time, the majority favored it. The issue was particularly relevant during this period because the popular vote in the 1968 and 1976 presidential elections was so closely divided…

Next question? What do you think Congress will do about responding to the will of the people?

I thought so, too. They are truly useless.

History of modern American deficits: 1962 – 2007 Congressional Budget Office

Congressional Republicans are clear in their demand for a constitutional amendment forcing the government to balance its budget. What they’re not offering is clarity on how to get there.

It’s politically popular to line up behind such an amendment; laying out specific cuts is less appealing.

Almost all Republicans and some Democrats will vote to alter the Constitution when the issue comes up as early as this week. Almost none, including a leading co-sponsor of the Senate measure, Orrin Hatch, and Bill Flores of Texas, a co-sponsor of the House measure, say how they’d slash Medicare, eliminate federal programs or shrink education, law enforcement or national defense. Republicans agree that tax increases shouldn’t be part of the equation.

“It’s a misleading political cheap shot,” Bill Hoagland, a budget adviser to Republican congressional leaders from 1982 to 2007, said of the proposed amendment. “We all agree we should have a balanced budget, but that’s the process of budgeting and governing. They are paid to come to town and make decisions…”

Hatch, a Utah Republican facing re-election in 2012, wouldn’t offer specifics on entitlement cuts or say which federal departments he would close to reach a balanced budget.

“When the time comes, I’ll name them,” said Hatch. “I don’t want to do it right now, because we have to pass that amendment…”

He also needs to get his butt re-elected. Something that might not happen if he admitted he wants to destroy Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid.

Representative Flores, a freshman Republican, said he couldn’t name specific cuts “off the top of my head.”

Asked what reductions he would make to comply with a constitutional amendment, Representative Allen West, a first- year Republican from Florida, didn’t cite specific programs yet…said he noticed the military is starting “to be careful about buying toilet paper in the barracks…”

Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina co-sponsored Toomey’s budget and said it would reach balance in 10 years…DeMint said specifics on cuts to meet a constitutional requirement would come later.

Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill of Missouri called the balanced-budget amendment “political posturing. I find it hard to believe that anybody with a straight face voted to keep giving subsidies to Big Oil and then thinks we have to do a balanced-budget amendment,” she said.

Which is worse? Liars or hypocrites? Today’s Republican Party doesn’t even represent all of corporate America, the breadth of Wall Street investment banks. Like the US Chamber of Commerce, they work to keep Big Oil, Big Pharma, the biggest insurance companies warm in bed.

Small businesses, progressive 21st Century corporations out to build products that might revive the United States economy are not invited into the inner circle of gilded politicians. Republicans use the phalanx of ignorant Kool Aid populists to pretend to working class, middle class sensibilities. But, that’s like pretending to be all-American by riding a Harley-Davidson. Another “American” product which couldn’t get around the block if you removed the foreign-made components which make it run.

In a step few politicians would take, Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle…declared the nation’s decades-old war on drugs a failure…

“Rather than invest in detaining people in the Cook County Jail at almost $150 a day . . . we need to invest in treatment, education and job-skills training. That’s the only way . . . we are going to reduce crime and stabilize our communities,” she said…

“We all know that the war on drugs has failed to end drug use. Instead, it’s resulted in the incarceration of millions of people around the country, and 100,000 here in Cook County on an annual basis,” she said. “Drugs and the failed war on the drugs have devastated lives, families and communities. For too long we’ve treated drug use as a criminal justice issue, rather than a public issue, which is what it is.”

Academics, religious leaders and social-service providers spoke out, but Preckwinkle was the sole politician to address the crowd, which cheered her on.

Kathleen Kane-Willis, director of Roosevelt University’s Illinois Consortium on Drug Policy, kicked off the rally by citing recent statistics indicating Illinois leads the nation when it comes to putting far greater percentages of African Americans behind bars for drug crimes than whites.

“The sad thing about the war on the drugs is that most people know it has failed,” added Rev. Alexander Sharp of Protestants for the Common Good. “They just don’t have the courage to say so…”

Preckwinkle’s call for more treatment and less punishment was in keeping with her statements on the campaign trail, when she often talked about diverting drug users into treatment programs. She said she now is working with the courts, prosecutors, defense attorneys and the sheriff’s office to find ways to do that.

“If 70 percent of the people in the jail are there for non-violent offenses, and 83 percent of the people who walk through the door have illicit drugs in their system, clearly the issue we’ve got is around addiction as much as it is around criminal justice,” she said after making her speech. “It is a public health issue.”

American politicians lead the Western World in hypocrisy. Moralizing based upon myth, laws carrying sanctions better suited to the Dark Ages, characterize the unproductive foolishness that our jurisprudence and book of laws has become.

Most drug use should be decriminalized. Take crime and drug cartels out of the equation altogether – and treat simple addictions for what they are. A product of many causes from genetic sensitivity to social and economic despair.

Daylife/Getty Images used by permission

President Barack Obama promised victims of the deadliest U.S. tornado in 65 years that the federal government would help them rebuild, saying on Sunday it was a national tragedy.

“The cameras may leave. The spotlight may shift,” he told a memorial service for the 139 known victims of the May 22 twister. But the federal government “will be with you every step of the way until Joplin is restored and this community is back on its feet,” Obama said to a standing ovation from survivors.

Before the service in an auditorium at Missouri Southern State University, Obama rolled up his sleeves and toured a disaster scene where crushed cars, piles of wood, clothing and a broken dishwasher lay helter-skelter amid the debris on lots where houses once stood.

The president, who returned on Saturday night from a six-day trip to Europe, vowed to cut through any federal red tape to help with rebuilding that he predicted would be “a tough, long slog.”

“This is just not your tragedy,” he said after meeting survivors. “This is a national tragedy and that means there’s going to be a national response.”

Meanwhile –

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor assured the people of Joplin, Mo., Sunday that Congress will help them recover, but said the funds must be offset elsewhere. That means they won’t get a penny until after negotiations in Congress to cut other programs designed for working folks.

Cantor also said House Republicans “absolutely” stand by the Medicare plan of Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., despite losing a special election in New York last week.

So, he didn’t miss a chance to back privatizing Social Security and turning Medicare over to our “friends” in the Insurance Business.

That’s what Republican aid for folks in Tuscaloosa and Joplin looks like.

Electric Boat Company in Groton, Connecticut

The defense bill that just passed the House of Representatives includes a back-door fund that lets individual members of Congress funnel millions of dollars into projects of their choosing.

This is happening despite a congressional ban on earmarks — special, discretionary spending that has funded Congress’ pet projects back home in years past, but now has fallen out of favor among budget-conscious deficit hawks.

Under the cloak of a mysteriously-named “Mission Force Enhancement Transfer Fund,” Congress has been squirreling away money — like $9 million for “future undersea capabilities development,” $19 million for “Navy ship preliminary design and feasibility studies,” and more than $30 million for a “corrosion prevention program.”

So in a year dominated by demands for spending cuts, where did all the money come from?

Roughly $1 billion was quietly transferred from projects listed in the president’s defense budget and placed into the “transfer fund.” This fund, which wasn’t in previous year’s defense budgets (when earmarks were permitted), served as a piggy bank from which committee members were able to take money to cover the cost of programs introduced by their amendments…

For example, that $9 million for “future undersea capabilities development” was requested by Rep. Joe Courtney, D-Connecticut, whose district happens to be home to General Dynamics Electric Boat, a major supplier of submarines and other technologies to the U.S. Navy. And the $19 million for “Navy ship preliminary design and feasibility studies”? Rep. Steve Palazzo, R-Mississippi, asked for that. His district’s largest employer is Ingalls Shipbuilding — a major producer of surface combat ships for the Navy.

Nothing in these expenditures appears to be illegal, but critics say they still may violate the spirit, if not the language, of the earmark ban. “These amendments may very likely duck the House’s specific definition of what constitutes an earmark, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t pork,” says Leslie Paige of Citizens Against Government Waste, a government-spending watchdog group. The group believes if modification of the National Defense Authorization Act generated savings, that money should have been put toward paying down the deficit.

Sleaze is still sleaze. Good programs should be able to stand up to Congressional budgetary concerns. Especially in a year when every hypocrite owned by any corporate wallet is claiming to be upstanding on the question.

If the answer to earmarks is yet another mystery fund, the teabaggers, Blue Dog cowards and Republican beancounters aren’t even close to pretending to solve the issues they raise in their phony electoral campaigns.