Welcome! "What's Happenin'?" is a casual community diary (a daily series, 8:30 AM Eastern on weekdays, 10 AM on weekends and holidays) where we hang out and talk about the goings on here and everywhere.
We welcome links to your writings here on dkos or elsewhere, posts of pictures, music, news, etc.
Just about anything goes, but attacks and pie fights are not welcome here. This is a community diary and a friendly, peaceful, supportive place for people to interact.
Everyone who wants to join in peaceful interaction is very welcome here.
|
Good Morning!
Longwood Gardens. March, 2012. Photo credit: joanneleon
The worst sorrows in life are not in its losses and misfortunes, but its fears.
~ A. C. Benson
News
Sherrod Brown: End ‘too big to fail’
A bipartisan group of 33 senators supported a proposal called the SAFE Banking Act, which I introduced with my former colleague, Ted Kaufman (D-Del.). This act would eliminate the taxpayer support enjoyed by the largest Wall Street banks — institutions that, by virtue of their size, could topple the entire U.S economy, should they fail.
Our amendment did not pass the Senate, but to judge from the numerous recent calls to limit the size and risk of Wall Street banks — calls that are coming not only from public squares but from boardrooms too — it’s clear that this commonsense idea is starting to take hold.
Steepest Global Slide Since Recession Pushes Rate Cuts
Monetary-policy makers from around the world are being pressed into action to shore up a global economy that is suffering its steepest slowdown since the recession ended in 2009.
On the heels of a June 5 interest-rate cut by Australia, China yesterday unveiled its first reduction in borrowing costs in more than three years to counter what Premier Wen Jiabao has called increasing downward economic pressure.
European Central Bank President Mario Draghi left the door open at a June 6 press conference to a rate cut, while highlighting the limitations of the ECB’s tools in countering the region’s financial turmoil.
And Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke told a Congressional committee yesterday that policy makers will discuss later this month whether to do more to spur growth, though he said the steps they could take may have “diminishing returns.”
How A Radical North Dakota Ballot Initiative Could Allow The Religious Right To Ignore Traffic Lights
A North Dakota ballot intitative appears designed to allow anti-gay groups to openly defy bans on discrimination, and it is written so expansively that it could authorize thousands of North Dakotans to outright ignore everything from traffic lights to medical access laws — all in the name of supposedly protecting religous liberty. Under the proposed state constitutional amendment, which appears on state ballots June 12:
Campaigns Blitz 9 Swing States in a Battle of Ads
HENDERSON, Nev. — The presidential campaigns and their allies are zeroing in mainly on nine swing states, bombarding them with commercials in the earliest concentration of advertising in modern politics.
[ ... ]
Already, ads about President Obama or Mitt Romney have been run nearly 6,000 times in and around Las Vegas since April 11, more than in any other media market in the country during that period, according to the Kantar Media Campaign Media Analysis Group. And the $5 million spent by both sides during that eight-week stretch translates into the highest rate of spending per electoral vote anywhere by far. Underscoring the state’s importance this year, Mr. Obama campaigned in Las Vegas on Thursday; Mr. Romney visited last week for a rally and a fund-raiser.
Probing Obama’s secrecy games
Will high-level Obama officials who leak for political gain be punished on equal terms with actual whistleblowers?
Over the past several months, including just last week, I’ve written numerous times about the two glaring contradictions that drive the Obama administration’s manipulative game-playing with its secrecy powers: (1) at the very same time that they wage an unprecedented war on whistleblowers, they themselves continuously leak national security secrets exclusively designed to glorify Obama purely for political gain; and (2) at the very same time they insist to federal courts that these programs are too secret even to confirm or deny their existence (thereby shielding them from judicial review or basic disclosure), they run around publicly boasting about their actions. Just over the past month alone, they have done precisely this by leaking key details about Obama’s commanding role in the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, drone attacks that have killed allegedly key Al Qaeda figures, sophisticated cyber-attacks on Iran’s nuclear program, and the selection of targets for Obama “kill list”: all programs that are classified and which the White House has insisted cannot be subjected to judicial review or any form of public scrutiny.
30 Ways to Shrink Intelligence Oversight
The DNI released their 2013 Intelligence Authorization request yesterday. Almost 10 pages of the 24 page document describe reporting that these “oversight” committees will no long require from the Intelligence Community. The bill starts by putting a default 3 year expiration on any new reporting requirements. And then it includes a list of 27 reports that the bill will eliminate and another 3 that it will modify.
And while some of the reports may well be redundant or outdated (the justification given for most of the changes), some seem really troubling. For example, the bill would eliminate a requirement–passed just three years ago–that the Administration audit and report (partially in unclassified form) the total number of security clearances and how long it takes to approve and reapprove those clearances.
Time For Outrage On Behalf of the Planet
It's Time to Fight the Status Quo
All along, two things have been clear.
One, the scientists who warned us about climate change were absolutely correct—their only mistake, common among scientists, was in being too conservative. [ ... ]
Two, we have much of the technological know-how we need to make the leap past fossil fuel. Munich Re again: “Whilst climate change cannot be stopped, it can be kept within manageable proportions, thus avoiding the possibility that climate change tipping points will be reached.”
Scotland announces 'climate justice' fund for world's poorest
The Scottish government has unveiled a £3m initiative to help people in the world's poorest countries adapt to the impact of climate change. The climate justice fund, launched in Edinburgh on Thursday, will disburse the money in equal instalments over the next three years to support water projects in Malawi, Rwanda, Tanzania and Zambia.
The scheme, which provides new funding rather than drawing on Scotland's existing overseas aid budget, was announced by Alex Salmond, the Scottish first minister, and the former Republic of Ireland president Mary Robinson. Both called on rich nations to reduce carbon emissions, arguing that the developing world bears the brunt of flooding, drought and other natural disasters, despite doing little to cause such events.
The scheme will focus on helping people in Malawi, Rwanda, Tanzania and Zambia cope with the effects of climate change
Blog Posts of Interest
The Evening Blues - 6-7-12 on DailyKos by joe shikspack
Essential Visibility and the Overpass Light Brigade on DailyKos by noise of rain
Netroots Nation 2012 Live Broadcast Schedule for Friday, June 8, 2012 on DailyKos by Jed Lewison
Why what Ben Bernanke said yesterday should make you angry on DailyKos by akadjian
Mercenaries for Empire: Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch on BlackAgendaReport by Glen Ford
Uncertainty Trope on Hullabaloo by Digby