Politics Plus

I was sitting here at my desk when my desk began to shake very noticeably.  Thank goodness for the internet as I googled 'seismic activity bc' and learned that there was a 4.8 earthquake just north of Victoria at about 23:40, the time my desk began shaking.  My little girl was asleep under my desk and momentarily opened her eyes.  She is asleep again, but I can still feel my heart going thumpty-thumpt!  OK, I'll be awake for yet a while tonight.

Mother Jones — "Today, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is so far outside the historic American model of constitutionally limited government and the rule of law that it is the perfect case study of the pathologies that infect our bureaucracies at the federal level," former House Speaker Newt Gingrich solemnly intoned in his opening statement as an expert witness at a congressional hearing on December 16. "It is dictatorial. It is unaccountable. It is practically unrestrained in expanding on its already expansive mandate from Congress. And it is contemptuous of the rights, values, and preferences of ordinary Americans."

Newty is at it again . . . lie after lie!  I am not saying the CFPB is perfect, but it is needed to keep the financial vultures off the backs of ordinary people.  Having been in the financial services industry for over 40 years, and being one that supports the rights of consumers, Newty is all wet! What is truly disturbing is the apparent lack of awareness of this agency and its role by the public.

Truthdig — 

The difference with the “bail-in” is that the order of creditor seniority is changed. In the end, it amounts to the cronies (other banks and government) and non-cronies. The cronies get 100% or more; the non-cronies, including non-interest-bearing depositors who should be super-senior, get a kick in the guts instead. . . .

In principle, depositors are the most senior creditors in a bank. However, that was changed in the 2005 bankruptcy law, which made derivatives liabilities most senior. Considering the extreme levels of derivatives liabilities that many large banks have, and the opportunity to stuff any bank with derivatives liabilities in the last moment, other creditors could easily find there is nothing left for them at all.

Credit to Politics Plus Were They Really TBTF?

As of September 2014, US derivatives had a notional value of nearly $280 trillion. A study involving the cost to taxpayers of the Dodd-Frank rollback slipped by Citibank into the “cromnibus” spending bill last December found that the rule reversal allowed banks to keep $10 trillion in swaps trades on their books. This is money that taxpayers could be on the hook for in another bailout; and since Dodd-Frank replaces bailouts with bail-ins, it is money that creditors and depositors could now be on the hook for.

There is a great need for the return of Glass-Steagall to separate the risky investment business, currently pegged at some $280 trillion in 2014, from daily deposit banking.  Without it, everyday depoitors like you and I could lose all our savings.  To effect that change will require an absence of Republicans in Congress, but also an absence of banksters writing the rules, no matter what party governs.

Policy.mic — In 2001, the Portuguese government did something that the United States would find entirely alien. After many years of waging a fierce war on drugs, it decided to flip its strategy entirely: It decriminalized them all.

If someone is found in the possession of less than a 10-day supply of anything from marijuana to heroin, he or she is sent to a three-person Commission for the Dissuasion of Drug Addiction, typically made up of a lawyer, a doctor and a social worker. The commission recommends treatment or a minor fine; otherwise, the person is sent off without any penalty. A vast majority of the time, there is no penalty.

Fourteen years after decriminalization, Portugal has not been run into the ground by a nation of drug addicts. In fact, by many measures, it's doing far better than it was before.

What Portugal has done is change its paradigms around addiction from a punative to a health care focus.  We treat smoking and drinking, both addictions for some people, as health care issues.  Why would we not treat drug addiction in a similar way?

My Universe — I could not decide which to use so you get all three!

Well I am back after resting almost 18 hours, 10 of those hours sleeping.  I felt fairly good this morning when I awoke for physio.  Since then, I have felt terrific.  Somehow the snow missed us except in the mountains behind me.  I would say the sight was stunning, but the clouds and mist hid the view.  For those that don't know, TomCat was having a new desk delivered and installed.  Something happened during the installation and he lost his internet.  Hopefully, he won't be offline for long.

Short Takes

CBC — The Bakours' three-bedroom house, rented for them by the Metropolitan United Church, is a drastic change from the tent they called home in a crowded refugee camp since fleeing Syria four years ago.  

Wahida and Hussein Bakour fled Syria with their children after the brutal civil war began four years ago. Mohamad, 7, Malak, 6, Rahaf, 3, and twin boys Ali and Fawaz, 10, are in a home in Toronto thanks to a Toronto church congregation's help. (Nicole Ireland/CBC)

"Muddy, dirt, like the life was not pleasant at all," Wahida Bakour said. 

"There were rats all over the place when we were sleeping … like all around us," said her 10-year-old son, Ali. 

Then there was the never-ending hunger. 

 "My father used to go to the trash and pick … like bread and feed those kids," Wahida Bakour said.  

As I come across these stories of the lives the Syrian refugees have left as told in their own words, I will share them. Our news is so sanitised but the ordeal, nay the hell these people have lived through is very real.

Think Progress — As storms once again battered the state of Alabama over Christmas, Republican Gov. Robert Bentley moved to divert funding from the 2010 BP oil spill recovery effort to finance the renovation of a second Governor’s mansion on the Gulf Coast.

Yet that beachside mansion, which Alabama governors beginning with famed segregationist George Wallace have enjoyed, was not damaged by the BP oil spill. It was damaged more than two decades earlier by Hurricane Danny, and has sat empty ever since.

Ah! . . . fiscal conservatism Republican style.  The funds may not be classified as taxpayer dollars, but they certainly belong to some of the taxpayers.  "Bentley argues that the mansion repairs are a priority for economic development…" and I say "in a pig's eye!"

ABC — Meadowlark Lemon, the "clown prince" of basketball's barnstorming Harlem Globetrotters, whose blend of hook shots and humor brought joy to millions of fans around the world, has died. He was 83.

"My destiny was to make people happy," Lemon said as he was inducted into the basketball hall as a contributor to the game in 2003.

I don't remember when I first heard about the Harlem Globetrotters, but I loved every moment that I was able to see them play on television.  I remember Meadowlark Lemon and others . . . laughing uproariously at their antics.  And who could forget their signature music "Sweet Georgia Brown"?  Thanks for the memories Meadowlark.

My Universe —

So, for how long did that butterfly live after

landing on Chester's nose?