Links, 8/10/11
The HuffPo looks at how the Panama trade deal will just make it easier for rich Americans to dodge taxes.
Bank of America may be insolvent and stealing homes from people, but the police still obey them, rather than Community Organizers, even when the Organizers catch BoA being a deadbeat.
More than three times as many people showed up for free school suppliers in Houston over the weekend than showed up for Rick Perry’s religious-political revival. (h/t C&L) It sort of makes you wonder how a bunch of purportedly religious people missed the crowds of needy kids.
Apparently, if you want to be on MTV’s The Real World, you have to sign a document acknowledging you may be raped, infected with sexually transmitted diseases.
The National Journal reminds us that it took a comedian–Al Franken–to get serious about reforming credit rating agencies.
Apparently, FBI is going to try to make sure its agents appear to know the Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide by making the test of their knowledge easier. This is after a bunch of agents cheated to pass a longer test last year.
DHS says states can’t opt out of Secure Communities, the program that, in the name of deporting undocumented people with criminal backgrounds, has instead served to deport others. The decision will likely make cities less safe, as the threat of deportation leads undocumented people to avoid interacting with cops, even if they’ve experienced crime.m
Thanks for sharing the link! Can’t believe Bank of America! Update is coming!!!!!
For trash
The Coming Collapse of the Big 12 minus 2 … (er, uh, the Howevermany Junior Conference ?)
http://msn.foxsports.com/collegefootball/story/Collapse-of-Big-12-would-change-college-football-as-we-know-it-081011
(Cripes! Can’t anyone in these conferences count? lol)
stephen colbert’s first SuperPAC commercial is up:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/08/10/1005522/-Late-afternoon-early-evening-open-thread?via=blog_1
believe the b.g. is the Iowa Straw Poll has added a write-in vote to the ballot for the first time, and “Americans for Rick Perry, a 527 unaffiliated with the Texas governor’s presumed presidential campaign, is traveling across Iowa this week urging potential Ames straw poll voters to write in the Republican’s name at this weekend’s event.”
http://www.rollcall.com/news/perry_wont_be_at_straw_poll_but_little_engine_will-208078-1.html
and, LATimes latest on the “Fast & Furious” cluster – “ATF’s gun surveillance program showed early signs of failure”
“Under the program, agents were to watch — in some cases video record — illegal sales and then use surveillance teams and electronic eavesdropping to follow the guns and learn how the weapons were moved.”
v. curious as to the particulars of this “electronic eavesdropping”
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-atf-guns-20110811,0,7349292.story
OT, but I’m coming to visit the fam in Michigan next week and the week after. How are things in “America’s High Five”, emptywheel?
@JohnT:
The aggies are going to leave the whorns? I’ll believe it when I see it. Besides, why would the SEC want them? What does the SEC gain out of it? Places like Tuscaloosa or Knoxville look like Paris compared to College Station. The Aggies are legends in their own minds.
If the SEC were smart and thought there was going to be a whorn conference breakup they would take the two Oklahoma schools and tell both the whorns and aggies to go frak themselves.
@GulfCoastPirate: College Station may suck, but those Aggies support their teams incredibly well, and the number of fans who travel count for something. Even in baseball, for crying out loud, I was blown away by how many of them came to Gainesville for a three game series a few years ago. And this year in Omaha, they may well have had the largest number of fans (well, prolly a toss-up between them and the Whorns).
@Linnaeus: You may well hit quite lovely weather: our heat finally broke and it’s gorgeous here.
@Jim White:
Are you a Texan? If so, you may be interested in this interview from this morning.
http://www.1560.tv/podcast/files/Liucci.mp3
How many hicks from central Texas head to Gainsville or Omaha for a weekend is irrelevant to whatever expansion is coming in college fotball. It’s going to be driven by TV sets and the Aggies had to go five games into last season before they could get a game on TV in Texas. Except for the Aggies themselves they’re basically looked on as a joke by everyone else down here. Why would the SEC want to bail A&M out of their debt problem (their athletic department is deeply in debt to the state by borrowing through the school)when they don’t bring that many pair of eyes to the TV? Maybe the SEC does want to help them – I don’t know. But you have to explain to me what’s in it for the SEC. Are they going to take the pie they have now and split it up among more people because they’re into charity? Maybe it happens – I don’t know. It just seems to me that A&M is talking a lot but the SEC is saying very little. If the SEC wants TV sets they use A&M to break up the Big XII and when the time comes they grab Oklahoma (who probably can’t go anywhere without Okie St). That’s the prize in the Big XII. Then the poor little Aggies can be left holding the bag which is about what they deserve.
But who knows? You may be correct.
@GulfCoastPirate: Nah, I’m originally from Oklahoma. But I think the SEC is actually fine as it is. I see your point about TV sets controlling it all.
Nick Clegg in the UK borrows Obama’s trade deal logic to explain how cutbacks in police on the street will lead to more police on the street:
“I think it is ridiculous to try and draw a link between out-and-out criminality and savings we are asking police forces to make as if somewhow there’s a link between people smashing windows and savings the police forces have to make which will be entirely manageable and will allow police forces to dramatically increase officers on the street.”
During the last two weeks, many people in the Tea Party have watched their retirement investments in the stock market plunge more than $50,000…
What kind of tax is that?
@radiofreewill: That’s not a tax, that’s because Obama screwed up.
Boxturtle (In the Tea Party, everything is Obama’s fault)
Basic Systems such as Capitalism, Free Markets, and Democracy are like fine instruments built around balanced and harmonious dynamics, like this:
http://youtu.be/IoIHu2rsXM8
The ‘irrationality’ that would throw a wrench into those gears – even though it’s their engine, too – is a threat to us all.
@BoxTurtle: Yep, here’s a video clip of the Tea Party’s behavior just before they blame Obama:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/09/e-trade-baby-stock-market_n_922580.html
Hypersonic DARPA aircraft goes missing in test.
DARPA is seeking this:
@rosalind:
I thought it was interesting that BATF latched onto the DoJ’s memo (which looked to be just suggestions) and promptly turned it into an actual program, without, apparently, having anyone review it first for possible holes and bad ideas.
@Garrett:
The story I read on the test indicated it would go down on (more accurately in) the ocean when it lost communications. Failure, yes. Missing, only because they may not know exactly where it went down. (This being the DoD, they presumably had radar and whatnot tracking it.)