Sleeping bear finally awakens

Notes 61

The tranquilized bear has finally awakened after taking a pass on Sen Feingold and a liberal governor

Wis. union vote on hold after Democrats leave state

Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan summed up the unexpected fervor on MSNBC today: "Cairo has moved to Madison."
Gov. Scott Walker's legislation would end collective bargaining rights--the process by which employees band together to negotiate with employers--for almost all of Wisconsin's state, county and local workers (police, firefighters and the state patrol would be excepted). This would mean, among other things, that unions wouldn't be able to seek pay increases above inflation, unless voters approve those hikes in a special referendum. Unions also would not be able to require members to pay dues, and would have to hold yearly votes to stay organized.
The bill also would make public workers pay half the cost of their pensions, and at least 12.6 percent of their health care coverage. On average, state employees' share of their pension and health care costs would go up by 8 percent.
In exchange for all this, Walker has promised not to lay off or furlough public employees. But he has said that if the bill doesn't pass, he'll order layoffs of up to 6,000 state workers.

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More battles over House GOP spending bill

By Press Andrew Taylor, Associated Press –
The arts and heating subsidy votes were the first in an anticipated long day as House leaders pressed to wrap up a $1.2 trillion spending bill to fund the Pentagon and the operating budgets of every Cabinet agency and to provide $158 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Boehner said that after passage of the pending measure, containing $61 billion in cuts, the Republican majority would next turn its attention to "wasteful mandatory spending."
The term "mandatory programs" generally refers to benefits such as food stamps, farm subsidies, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

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How sweet it is. A Mob prosecutor running New Jersey like the poor are gangsters--and people polled love it. It’s a sad reflection on Americans scared about their pocketbook and not about their Christian values. No need to worry about a sectarian nation.


Chris Christie Shows Why He's a GOP Star
Eleanor Clift Eleanor Clift – Wed Feb 16
Soon after taking office in January 2010, Gov Chris Christie, NJ, was told the state could not meet its payroll if he didn't act immediately to close a deficit. He impounded money without the permission of the legislature.
He likes to tell stories about himself taking on the teachers' unions and the firefighters and the police officers.
The way to understand Christie, says Ben Dworkin, director of the Institute for New Jersey Politics at Rider University, "is he has the leadership skills of a powerful prosecutor who happens to be governor. He argues his case in the press, and he stays on the attack constantly." As a federal prosecutor in New Jersey, Christie never lost a corruption case, and there were plenty in a state best known for The Sopranos. His favorite phrase: "Heads I win, tails you lose."
The attributes that have excited Republicans were on full display at AEI. Christie neatly skewered Obama's notion of big things, calling high-speed rail, high-speed Internet access, and a million electric cars "the candy of American politics," not the place where real politicians get their chops in an era of scarce resources.

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Multi billion dollar decisions given to pipe jockeys on Deepwater Horizon

BP workers could have prevented rig accident: commission
By Ayesha Rascoe Ayesha Rascoe
REUTERS
"The sad fact is that this was an entirely preventable disaster," the White House oil spill commission’s chief counsel, Fred Bartlit said on Thursday. "Poor decisions by management were the real cause.”
Had BP's well site leaders brought their faulty explanation of the test results to either of the visiting engineers, "events likely would have turned out differently," the commission report said.
The two engineers who were visiting the rig that day said they would have insisted on further testing, had they been consulted.

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Sounds like Karzai took lessons from Wall Street

Kabul Bank crisis
by Katherine Haddon –
KABUL (AFP)
Reuters
The Afghan finance ministry issued a statement saying Afghan and US officials had agreed that the "unethical and fraudulent behaviour" of bank executives plus failings at the country's central bank, Da Afghanistan Bank, were at the heart of the problem.
The war-torn country's biggest commercial bank, whose owners include a brother of President Hamid Karzai, came close to collapse last year amid claims that former executives had granted themselves huge loans off the books.

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What the IMF does well, gives a nation’s resources over to private interests. Private interests proved much better at looting U.S. resources during the financial meltdown than the government ever did with its tax and spend policies.

Greek minister heightens row with EU, IMF
AFP – Wed Feb 16
ATHENS (AFP) - Greek Finance Minister George Papaconstantinou accused the EU and IMF Wednesday of exceeding their role in calling for massive privatisation to boost the country's coffers, while not ruling out such a move.

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Chevron finally reads the writing on the wall--too late. What a joke. The Niger Delta is an ecological disaster with oil festering like a gigantic cesspool in the waters and farmlands of the locals

Chevron foundation, USAID give Nigeria $50M
By YINKA IBUKUN, Associated Press– Thu Feb 17
LAGOS, Nigeria –
Chevron Corp.'s foundation and USAID are to pour $50 million into Nigeria's impoverished delta where militants have kidnapped foreign oil workers and demanded that more oil profits come back to the region, the U.S. oil giant said Thursday.
Chevron's Niger Delta Partnership Initiative and the U.S.-government funded USAID will each invest $25 million toward the development of the region over the next four years.
Chevron's move in Nigeria comes after a judge in Ecuador ordered the oil company on Monday to pay $9.5 billion in damages and cleanup costs after ruling that Chevron was responsible for oil drilling contamination in a wide swath of Ecuador's northern jungle. Chevron plans to appeal that decision.