Fausta's Blog

American and Latin American Politics, Society, and Culture

Archives for May 2010

May 27, 2010 By Fausta

Oil leak plugged!

‘Top kill’ plugs gulf oil leak, official says
Drilling fluid has blocked oil and gas, U.S. Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen says. Engineers plan to begin pumping in cement and then will seal the well.

Engineers have stopped the flow of oil and gas into the Gulf of Mexico from a gushing BP well, the federal government’s top oil-spill commander, U.S. Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, said Thursday morning.

The “top kill” effort, launched Wednesday afternoon by industry and government engineers, had pumped enough drilling fluid to block oil and gas spewing from the well, Allen said. The pressure from the well was very low, he said, but persisting.

Once engineers had reduced the well pressure to zero, they were to begin pumping cement into the hole to entomb the well. To help in that effort, he said, engineers also were pumping some debris into the blowout preventer at the top of the well.

The article also says,

As of early Thursday morning, neither government nor BP officials had declared the effort a success yet, pending the completion of the cementing and sealing of the well.

Here’s the livestream from the site.

Meanwhile, FoxNews just reported that Minerals Management Service Elizabeth Birnbaum has been fired. I guess she was one of those “bad apples” she was talking about.

In other oil news, prepare to pay and pay more:
Obama to Suspend Arctic Oil Drilling Until 2011

Related reading:
MRC Study: Media Double Standard on Gulf Coast Disasters

——————————-

This was the subject of today’s podcast, and later Daniel of Venezuela News and Views joined to talked about the latest in the country.

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Filed Under: business Tagged With: BP, Elizabeth Birnbaum, Fausta's blog, Gulf oil spill, Minerals Management Service

May 27, 2010 By Fausta

Looking for Coke in Jamaica VIDEO

Drug lord Christopher “Dudus” Coke, the son of one of Jamaica’s most influential gang leaders, is evading extradition to the US, and the country is in a drug war:


Jamaican Suspect Eludes Capture
Security Forces Search for Alleged Drug Lord on Fourth Day of Violence

Jamaican security forces clashed with armed fighters in shantytowns in the capital, Kingston, for the fourth day on Wednesday, as authorities searched for alleged drug lord Christopher “Dudus” Coke. Officials said 44 civilians had been killed since fighting began last weekend.

Mr. Coke, 41 years old, remained at large, authorities said, as soldiers moved house to house searching for him in the Tivoli Gardens neighborhood of Kingston. The government said Wednesday that Mr. Coke may have fled the country, the Associated Press reported.

Mr. Coke is wanted in the U.S. on drug-trafficking charges. U.S. officials say he leads a gang known as “Shower Posse,” an international criminal organization with ties in Jamaica and the U.S.

Jamaican Prime Minister Bruce Golding originally balked at an extradition request from the U.S., but changed his mind last week and issued a warrant for Mr. Coke’s arrest. Violence erupted soon after that. Authorities say Mr. Coke, a powerful figure among Jamaica’s poor known locally as a “don,” prepared for an attempt to capture him by arming citizens of Tivoli Gardens and urging them to fight.

Jamaica bans firearms, and the unprotected people have turned to gangs for “protection”

Much of the problem, authorities say, lies with the long-festering issue of Jamaica’s criminal organizations, many centered in Kingston’s shantytowns, and the rise of powerful “dons.” In exchange for the community’s protection of their illicit activity, these figures offer services that the government at times doesn’t, such as welfare and local justice. Mr. Coke is among the most powerful of these men.

The Jamaican government has shied away from attacking these figures in the past—particularly the government of Mr. Golding, whose district lies in Mr. Coke’s stronghold. In past altercations in Trench Town, drug bosses have armed neighborhoods with weapons and used women and children as human shields.

Unattended, the problem has grown—a similar predicament faced by countries like Mexico, which is facing rising levels of drug-related violence after having let the problem worsen for decades.

“Civil society in Jamaica has risen up and said ‘enough is enough,’” says Mark Thomas of Jamaica Trade and Invest, a group that promotes foreign investment in the country.

Airlines have stopped flights to Jamaica, and the country is in a state of emergency after shooting and firebomb attacks on police stations.

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Filed Under: cocaine, drugs, Jamaica Tagged With: Christopher "Dudus" Coke, Fausta's blog

May 27, 2010 By Fausta

What Do We Do about Venezuela?

Michael G. Franc ponders the question,

Twelve Republican senators, led by John Ensign (R., Nev.) and George LeMieux (R., Fla.), answered this question in a sharp letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Add Hugo Chávez’s lawless regime to the State Department’s list of state sponsors of terrorism, they told her, or come up with an awfully good set of reasons for why that is not the way to go.

Read the post, and read the senators’ letter.

Jason Poblete also posted on this.

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Filed Under: Communism, Congress, Hugo Chavez, terrorism, Venezuela Tagged With: Fausta's blog

May 26, 2010 By Fausta

Wednesday night tango: Dime mi amor

Monica Paz and Steven Cook at Triangulo NYC, dancing to Dime mi amor,

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Filed Under: dance, entertainment, tango Tagged With: Fausta's blog, Monica Paz

May 26, 2010 By Fausta

Dow drops below 10,000


(Click on image to enlarge)

Dow Closes Below 10,000 for First Time Since Feb. 8

“…The market is stuck in a violent trading range of wide swings without any particular conviction and the market is now dominated by momentum trading.”

A great part of this is due to uncertainty: when the government keeps throwing stuff at the economy the way the Obama administration has been doing for the past year, with no end in sight, investors are uncertain of what’s next.

For instance, TigerHawk points out,

1) Our economy is at a very uncertain crossroads. We have thrown a fiscal hail mary pass. Not only did we pass emergency measures like TARP, but we passed irresponsible measures, like the healthcare reform bill. We can’t afford it. We are running $1.5 trillion deficits. We are accumulating crisis levels of debt. And we have a short maturity profile.

If our country’s CFO Timothy Geithner knew better, he might be alarmed. Our unemployment levels are mired at high 9s%. Our markets have turned south with Europe’s fiscal and currency difficulties. At this moment we have corrected about 10% from the recovery highs, and are down 3.7% year to date.

The rising bond market and the equity markets are signalling a recessionary double dip. M3 monetary statistics are down 5+% in the latest twelve months, signalling deflation. This is urgent stuff.

2) On the domestic front, we have recently been subject to a series of failed, but nonetheless troubling terrorist atatcks. While the attacks themselves were incompetently executed, our intelligence capabilities failed us. If we suffer a significant domestic terror attack, the economic and social consequences will be awful.

And the administration continues to barrage us with more bailout, more spending, more debt. James Pethokoukis takes a glance at the proposed American Jobs and Closing Tax Loopholes Act (emphasis added):

…for a government running trillion-dollar budget deficits, at least every billion or so should count. And it’s hard to argue that this bill is optimized for job creation or economic growth.

1) For instance, the bill includes a one-year, $6.7 billion extension of the federal research and development tax credit. By not making it permanent, the credit is less likely to foster long-term investment. The bill also extends tax breaks for NASCAR and Hollywood, ensuring both Red and Blue state residents get fed their respective helpings of pork.

2) More than a quarter of the spending — $47 billion over 10 years — goes toward extending unemployment insurance benefits. Economists worry the increased availability of such assistance may reduce the intensity with which the jobless look for work and lengthen the duration of unemployment by nearly 10 percent. It’s also tough to pin down the job-creating impact of spending $63 billion to increase Medicare payments to doctors and $24 billion for higher Medicaid spending.

3) Even worse, the proposal enlarges the budget deficit. Less than a quarter of the tab is paid for, showing again just how easy it is for Congress to avoid self-imposed limits on deficit spending. And increased Medicare spending was excluded from healthcare reform so the bill could get a better score from the Congressional Budget Office.

4) The White House will argue that given the high unemployment rate, bringing down the deficit is less of a priority. But listen to what economist Carment Reinhart told the president’s deficit panel today (via The Hill):

The gross U.S. debt is approaching a level equivalent to 90 percent of the country’s gross domestic product, the level at which growth has historically declined, said Carmen Reinhart, a University of Maryland economist. When gross debt hits 90 percent of GDP, Reinhart told the commission during a hearing in the Capitol, growth “deteriorates markedly.” Median growth rates fall by 1 percent, and average growth rates fall “considerably more,” she said.

Reinhart said the commission shouldn’t wait to put in place a plan to rein in deficits. “I have no positive news to give,” she said. “Fiscal austerity is something nobody wants, but it is a fact.

Pethokoukis concludes,

5) Barack Obama’s original stimulus plan was $787 billion (though costs have pushed it up to $862 billion). While some advisers argued for $1.2 trillion, the president sided with those who believed an amount of such Brobdingnagian size would alarm financial markets — and probably voters, too. This latest legislation, combined with a $17 billion jobs bill passed in March, would put the tally at around $1 trillion, not counting interest. In due course, the math will be easy enough for the markets to understand.

Let that 90% of GDP number sink in for a moment, and then tell me, How’s that for an Act?

(and, yes, that “Closing Tax Loopholes” part means you get to keep less of your hard-earned money)

And…
Stimulus Boosters, Listen Up: The CBO’s Estimates Don’t Tell You Whether Or Not the Stimulus Is Working

Douglas Elmendorf, the head of the Congressional Budget Office, has stated plainly that his team’s estimates do not measure real-world outputs (just inputs), that they do not serve as an independent check on its success or failure, and that if the stimulus had not created jobs, the CBO’s figures would not reflect that fact.

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Filed Under: Barack Obama, business, economics, economy Tagged With: bailout, budget, Dow Jones Industrial Average, Fausta's blog

May 26, 2010 By Fausta

Christie’s not going to tell you what you want to hear UPDATE with VIDEO

Christie instead will tell you the truth: New Jersey is flat-broke.

Chris Christie to teacher: If you don’t like my education budget, find a new job

borough teacher Rita Wilson, a Kearny resident, argued that if she were paid $3 an hour for the 30 children in her class, she’d be earning $83,000, and she makes nothing near that.

“You’re getting more than that if you include the cost of your benefits,” Christie interrupted.

When Wilson, who has a master’s degree, said she was not being compensated for her education and experience, Christie said:

“Well, you know then that you don’t have to do it.” Some in the audience applauded.

Christie said he would not have had to impose cuts to education if the teachers union had agreed to his call for a one-year salary freeze and a 1.5 percent increase in employee benefit contributions.

“Your union said that is the greatest assault on public education in the history of the state,” Christie said. “That’s why the union has no credibility, stupid statements like that.”

Surrounded by reporters after she spoke, Wilson said she was shaking from the encounter, and worried she might get in trouble for speaking out.

As Betsy points out,

Oh, as if a union teacher in New Jersey would get in trouble for asking a question of the governor about getting more money!

For areas such as Princeton, which treat the Borough and Township residents as a blank check, there’s this:

Christie has outlined a “toolkit” to address New Jersey’s property taxes, which on average are among the highest in the country. The centerpiece is a proposed constitutional amendment that would impose a 2.5 percent cap on the annual increase in the local property tax levy, which is the total amount of taxes collected each year from towns, school boards and county government.

It’s about time.

And yes, you know things are bad when I’m glad to hear about capping increases at 2.5%…

UPDATE
Ace has the video,

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Filed Under: New Jersey, NJ, taxes Tagged With: Chris Christie, Fausta's blog

May 26, 2010 By Fausta

Which one is it, Tom?

After hitting us with the idiot shtick on China, Friedman says he hates dictators:

Turkey and Brazil are both nascent democracies that have overcome their own histories of military rule. For their leaders to embrace and strengthen an Iranian president who uses his army and police to crush and kill Iranian democrats — people seeking the same freedom of speech and political choice that Turks and Brazilians now enjoy — is shameful.

As frequent readers of this blog know, I don’t post rumors; this time, however, I’ll post on a rumor.

The rumor is that the Obama administration gave a wink-wink nod-nod to Lula’s trip in the hope that Lula and Erdogan would come back convincing the Iranians to end the Iranian nuclear weapons program. The Friedman article hints at this,

Sure, had Brazil and Turkey actually persuaded the Iranians to verifiably end their whole suspected nuclear weapons program, America would have endorsed it. But that is not what happened.

Iran today has about 4,850 pounds of low-enriched uranium. Under the May 17 deal, it has supposedly agreed to send some 2,640 pounds from its stockpile to Turkey for conversion into the type of nuclear fuel needed to power Tehran’s medical reactor — a fuel that cannot be used for a bomb. But that would still leave Iran with a roughly 2,200-pound uranium stockpile, which it still refuses to put under international inspection and is free to augment and continue to reprocess to the higher levels needed for a bomb. Experts say it would only take months for Iran to again amass sufficient quantity for a nuclear weapon.

Instead, Lula and Erdogan played right into the mullahs’ hands:

So what this deal really does is what Iran wanted it to do: weaken the global coalition to pressure Iran to open its nuclear facilities to U.N. inspectors, and, as a special bonus, legitimize Ahmadinejad on the anniversary of his crushing the Iranian democracy movement that was demanding a recount of Iran’s tainted June 2009 elections.

Friedman says he wants Iran to be a democracy. Good. But he also says, hey, let’s have the USA be China for a day!

Which one is it, Tom?

———————————-

This will be the subject of today’s podcast at 11AM Eastern

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Filed Under: Brazil, Iran, Lula, NYT, Turkey Tagged With: Fausta's blog, Thomas Friedman

May 25, 2010 By Fausta

Obama sending troops to the Arizona-Mexico border, a switch-and-bait?

I wonder what Felipe would say about this?
Obama set to send 1,200 troops to US-Mexico border

President Barack Obama will deploy 1,200 National Guard troops to help secure the U.S.-Mexico border, according to an administration official and an Arizona congresswoman.

Obama will also request $500 million for border protection and law enforcement activities, they said.

Just last week Felipe was asking for what amounts to an open border, and he got a standing ovation in Congress.

The adminstration has not revealed what they are proposing (doesn’t that remind you of, “you have to pass it to know what’s in it”?),

An Obama administration official discussed the move on condition of anonymity because it had not yet been announced.

However, the WaPo email announcing the breaking news stated

The decision comes as the White House is seeking Republican support for broad immigration reform this year.

Republican support? Who has a majority in Congress right now?

What it looks like is that the troops at the Arizona border will be the ornamental carrot for the amnesty stick to follow, which will be referred to as “immigration reform”.

Or, in plainer terms, a switch-and-bait.

Related:
On the edge.

UPDATE
Here’s the official Mexican statement, in full:

Regarding the Administration’s decision to send 1,200 National Guard servicemen to the US Southern border, the Government of Mexico trusts that this decision will help to channel additional US resources to enhance efforts to prevent the illegal flows of weapons and bulk cash into Mexico, which provide organized crime with its firepower and its ability to corrupt.

Additionally, the Government of Mexico expects that National Guard personnel will strengthen US operations in the fight against transnational organized crime that operates on both sides of our common border and that it will not, in accordance to its legal obligations, conduct activities directly linked to the enforcement of immigration laws.

Mexico is determined to continue working on its side of the border to enhance the security and well-being of border communities, and to deter and dismantle organized crime and its links to drug trafficking and human smuggling.

As part of our joint strategy in the fight against transnational organized crime, there are actions that our two governments have undertaken together, and there are other measures taken independently by Mexico and by the US within their respective territories. In this regard, the Mexican Government fully respects the sovereign decisions of the US Government, but underscores that joint responsibility must continue to underpin our joint efforts in rolling-back transnational organized crime operating on both sides of the border.

Ace:

This signals that Eric Holder has been given the go-ahead to take Arizona to court over its immigration enforcement law.

Put the needed political cover into place, first. Then claim “we’re making real progress” and so we don’t need Arizona’s law. Then file suit.

That, too.

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Filed Under: Barack Obama, illegal immigration, immigration, Mexico Tagged With: Arizona, Fausta's blog, Felipe Calderón

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