News Today

Just a couple of things I wanted to note today, I’m going to try to get a more in depth post put together but we’ll see how things go at the job today.

Yesterday was the four year anniversary for Katrina striking New Orleans, meaning today is the anniversary of F.E.M.A. coming to the rescue for thousands of stranded refugees. Oh wait, no, that anniversary has to wait a couple days still. All sarcasm aside though we should never forget what happened there, lest we let it happen again.

Barack Obama will be hosting a Ramadan dinner Tuesday night, confirming the fact that he is a muslim!!! -Gasp- No in all actuality this is a White House tradition that started in 2002 with George W. Bush. So he was actually the muslim. Joke’s on you compassionate conservatives!

Also conservative columnist George Will has a column scheduled to run later this week which will call for a pull-out of United States troops in Afghanistan.

“Forces should be substantially reduced to serve a comprehensively revised policy: America should do only what can be done from offshore, using intelligence, drones, cruise missiles, airstrikes and small, potent special forces units, concentrating on the porous 1,500-mile border with Pakistan, a nation that actually matters,” Will writes in the column.

T. Boone Pickens, long-time oil man and current CEO of BP Capital warned Dan Mangru in a recent interview that the rules of cause and demand could push oil prices above $300 a barrel within the next decade.

As Pickens explained, supply is stuck at 85 million barrels per day but the demand around the world for oil will keep increasing. This will turn into higher gas prices as the supply can’t meet the demand.

“The only way if you peak on supply that you can kill demand is with price,” said Pickens.

Pickens also described two big problems the United States has. The first being our reliance on coal for energy and the second being our reliance on foreign oil. The United States currently uses coal for 52% of its power supply.

“We import almost 70 percent of our oil, and over half of what we import actually comes from countries that aren’t even friendly to us,” Pickens points out.

One solution Pickens offers to the equasion is natural gas. 22% of U.S. power already comes from natural gas, and more importantly natural gas supplies are plentiful in the United States. According to Pickens switching to natural gas from diesel on 18-wheel trucks alone could cut U.S. imports from OPEC in half in seven years.

“The technology is in place,” said Pickens, “It would be easy to do.”

I think the title “Wake me up when September ends” is appropriate given the month that we’re in for. It is going to be a hot, and I’m not talking about global warming. Scorching would be a good word to describe America’s political scene over this last month, with town-hall meetings erupting into shouting-fests all across the nation. If you noticed the heat in August, get ready for another sizzler this month. Here are News Today’s top five political stories to keep an eye on in September.

. . .

Health-care Reform

The Democrats are bound and determined to get a bill passed this year, and if they’re going to accomplish that September will be another huge month for the issue. It will be especially interesting to see what strategy Democrats utilize with the recent loss of Senator Edward Kennedy.

It will also be interesting to see how the Democrats deal with the two-pronged attack of insurance companies and the Republican party on it’s health care reform efforts.

. . .

Guantanamo Bay

Barack Obama’s self-imposed promise to close Guantanamo by January 22nd means the administration has some tough maneuvering in store for September. Obama’s attempt in May at resolving the Guantanamo problem was shot down 90-6 in a Senate vote. The current deal from Congress expires September 30th.

“They’ve got three or four weeks to come up with a plan, or they’re going to be facing some difficult votes,” said a congressional aide. “The issue is not going away. They can push the deadline and try to buy themselves some more time, but they can’t fail to put forward a plan and expect to close it on Jan. 22. Things aren’t going to work that way.”

Officials in Michigan are reportedly interested in holding some of the detainees at a prison complex that was due to close.

. . .

Iran

Obama had originally signaled that he would give the Iranians until December to sit down with the U.S. for nuclear talks. However, at Italy’s G-8 summit last month the president got other countries, such as Russia and China, to agree to take up the Iranian nuclear program when they travel to New York for the U.N. General Assembly debate on Sept. 23 and at the G-20 summit in Pittsburgh the next day.

“The international community has said, ‘Here’s a door you can walk through that allows you to lessen tensions and more fully join the international community,’” Obama said in Italy. “If Iran chooses not to walk through that door, then you have on record the G-8, to begin with, but I think, potentially, a lot of other countries that are going to say we need to take further steps.”

. . .

Afghanistan

This is going to be a big area of focus in September. Afghanistan is coming off of a controversial election, the results of which aren’t going to be fully counted for a few more weeks (President Hamid Karzai is believed to be in the lead). August proved to be the deadliest month for the United States in the almost eight year campaign, a sobering milestone as our top commander General Stanley McChrystal prepares to submit a report on the progress in the country.

“Afghanistan … will require some big decisions: whether to send more U.S. troops, how to prepare the country and Congress for the likelihood of a continued difficult period, how to address the results of the presidential race,” said Michael O’Hanlon of the Brookings Institution.

A record 62,000 U.S. troops are currently stationed in the country, with at least 4,000 more due by the end of the year. As more troops have occupied the country though, American casualties have also grown. Subsequently public support for the war is dropping. A Washington Post-ABC News poll recently found that over 50 percent of the American respondents believe the war in Afghanistan was not worth fighting.

. . .

Change or more of the same?

Obama will have a number of messy issues from the Bush administration to deal with in September. Attorney General Eric Holder is expected to name veteran justice department prosecutor John Durham as Special Prosecutor to probe CIA investigators suspected of having violated anti-torture laws, a move which has already drawn harsh criticism from the right.

Holder is also expected to announce whether he will urge bar discipline against Justice Department lawyers that drafted memos defending the legality of waterboarding and other practices that are considered torture.

. . .

Argentina’s Supreme Court decided today that it is unconstitutional to punish individuals for marijuana consumption. The ruling follows a case of five Argentinian men who were arrested with a couple of marijuana cigarettes in their pockets.

“Each adult is free to make lifestyle decisions without the intervention of the state,” ruled the court.

Supreme Court President Ricardo Lorenzetti said private behaviour was legal, “as long as it doesn’t constitute clear danger”.

“The state cannot establish morality,” said Lorenzetti.

This change in the mindset of how to fight the drug war is sweeping across the region. Argentina’s move follows similiar laws recently passed by several other countries including Venezuela, Ecuador, Colombia and most recently Mexico.

Richard Bove, a prominent banking analyst of Rochdale Securities said on Sunday that he expects another 150 to 200 banks to fail in 2009. 81 banks have already fallen under this year in the midst of the global recession.

“The difficulty at the moment is finding enough healthy banks to buy the failing banks,” Bove wrote.

This, warns Bove, will only add to the stress that the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp (FDIC) already faces. As more banks continue to fall under the FDIC will be forced to outsource that debt to various non-U.S. banks and private equity funds.

You can already see this process beginning to happen. Three bank closings in specific, BankUnited Financial, Colonial BancGroup, and Guaranty Financial Group in August, have cost the fund almost $10.7 billion combined.

When regulators closed the Texas-based Guaranty banking unit on Friday large portions of the bank’s assets were purchased by Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria.

Within hours of President Barack Obama uttering the now infamous phrase “Wee-Wee’d Up” all of America was wondering the same question. What the hell does “Wee-Wee’d Up” mean?

“I don’t know what it is,” said Mr. Obama.

Well what good are you anyways then? Since Obama hesitated to give a meaning to his newly created phrase, I decided to take it upon myself to figure out what “Wee-Wee’d Up” means. So without further ado, here are News Today’s top ten possible meanings for “Wee-Wee’d Up.”

News Today’s Top Ten Possible Meanings for “Wee-Wee’d Up” 

10. Something that happens to people in between August and September.

9. To read up on something, again.

8. To toss a frenchman in the air.

7. That wierd portal thing they do on Star Trek.

6. Something that has to do with a penis.

5. Something that has nothing to do with a penis.

4. To go all “Dick Cheney” on someone.

3. I’m not sure what it means, but I know I’ve heard babies say the same exact phrase.

2. To smoke marijuana in a group setting.

And finally…

1. “Wee-Wee’d” is actually what the mysterious 3rd W in BW3’s stands for.

My bet is on number five -

Anyone else have any suggestions?

Just days after the White House reported that it was trimming $262 billion off of the budget deficit for next year senior administration officials added on $2 trillion more for the ten year budget deficit projection.

I wrote that the original report was a beacon of hope in a sea of red flags. Looks like I spoke too soon, because I’m definitely seeing red again.

Obama administration officials pointed to the economy and low tax revenues as reasons that the estimated budget deficit will increase from $7 trillion to about $9 trillion over the coming decade.

Obama is treading a thin line here. While those on the far-right almost automatically opposed Obama, his seemingly out of control spending is causing the President to lose ground among independents and even some democrats.

Earlier in the week billionaire investor and political supporter of Obama Warren Buffett warned the President in an op-ed to the that massive spending leaves the nation in “uncharted fiscal territory.” Obama would be wise to heed the advice of one of his most trusted advisors. The path we are going down is unsustainable.

Not all the way, mind you, but small doses of several drugs are now legal, including marijuana, cocaine, LSD, methamphetamine, and heroin. According to prosecutors the new law sets limits that will keep corrupt police officers from demanding bribes from users and also offers addicts free drug treatment.

“This is not legalization, this is regulating the issue and giving citizens greater legal certainty,” said Bernardo Espino del Castillo of the attorney general’s office.

The new rule for users is a “three strikes you’re out” policy. Users who are caught but are under the legal limit will be offered treatment until the third time, when the treatment becomes mandatory. The limits are as follows:

Marijuana — 5 grams — the equivalent of about four “joints.”
Cocaine — half gram — the equivalent of about 4 “lines.”
Heroin — 50 milligrams — article didn’t say how much the rest of the amounts were in “street terms.”
Methamphetamine — 40 milligrams.
LSD — 0.015 milligrams.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out. I for one think the decriminalization will help Mexican police forces focus on the larger players in the drug cartels. Since President Felipe Calderon took office in late 2006 there have been over 95,000 people detained in Mexico for small-scale drug possession. The country simply can’t afford to settle for the status-quo with all of the problems they are facing.

Sounds eerily like another country that I know…

I shouldn’t even explain the quote, I ought to just leave it like it is.

“There’s something about August going into September where everybody in Washington gets all wee-wee’d up,” noted President Barack Obama on Thursday. “I don’t know what it is, but that’s what happens.”

Something indeed. In what had to make the President feel just a bit wee-wee’d up himself, Obama set out yesterday to sell his health insurance reform plans to liberals and conservatives.

He started his day by having a 25-minute conversation with conservative radio talk show host Michael Smerconish. The two went over a range of topics, mostly about health care, and then Obama fielded questions from callers. Smerconish, talking about the interview with Chris Matthews on MSNBC, said that there was no interference from the White House as far as which questions would be fielded.

Then the President had to shed his bipartisan coat and attend to a Democratic National Committee rally with his party’s base. Obama played the role of entertainer, heckling G.O.P. tactics in the health care debate.

“Look, we know where these lies are coming from. If you just flick channels and then just stop on — certain ones — then you’ll see, you know, you’ll see who’s propagating this stuff,” said Obama in a clear reference to Fox News.

The President even criticized talk radio, even though just hours earlier he had done a session with a conservative talk radio host.

“Unfortunately, Washington is obsessed with the snap poll … what’s said on talk radio,” said Obama.

Obama left the event to cheers of “Yes We Can,” a common rally cry for Obama supporters.

I’m not even going to lie you guys/gals, I didn’t have too much of a reason to put this all in a post. But when you get a quote like that it’s worth making a post for.

You guys ready for the weekend?

Wee-Wee’d up! Ready to go…

Karen Weaver of Deutsche Bank made headlines a few weeks ago when she predicted that, by 2011, nearly half of American mortgage holders would be underwater (they’ll owe more on their mortgages than their houses were worth).

Half of American mortgage holders equals out to about 1/3 of American households, or about 25 million mortgage holders. Right now around 14 million mortgage holders in the United States are underwater.

Deutsche Bank’s estimates are based on city-level projections of where prices will bottom out. Now these projections were made before a surprisingly good report from Case Shiller in June had come in. If the Case Shiller numbers do indeed signal recovery then Weaver’s grim “underwater” forecast may not actually come to pass. On the other hand, if the Case Shiller numbers were a fluke then Weaver’s claims just might come true.

This is a pretty scary scenario considering the shock-wave that the recent housing bubble bust began. Over one in every nine houses in the United States is currently vacant, and Weaver predicts that foreclosures will be an even bigger problem in 2011.