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 chat about our lives, our health, our families, our social circles, our pets, etc. We welcome links to your writings here on dkos or elsewhere, posts of pictures, music, 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.
This diary series is produced by the TeamDFH group but anyone who wants to join in peaceful interaction is very welcome.
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Good Morning!
Longwood Gardens, February, 2012, Photo credit: joanneleon
“It is said that power corrupts, but actually it's more true that power attracts the corruptible. The sane are usually attracted by other things than power.”
-- David Brin
News
Obama hails bank settlement; broader impact unclear
"Under the terms of this settlement, America's biggest banks, banks that were rescued by taxpayer dollars, will be required to right these wrongs. And that means more than just paying a fee," President Barack Obama said in a statement Thursday before the cameras.
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As part of the agreement, Wells Fargo said the participating attorneys general and federal agencies had agreed to release the company from claims and allegations regarding its servicing, modification and foreclosure practices.
Negotiations with nine other major servicers continue, and the settlement could be expanded, to estimates of $30 billion or even $45 billion.
MA AG Coakley Lawsuit Against Banks Ripped to Shreds in Settlement
Coakley says in a release that she got a carve-out over certain types of claims in the suit. Others, however, were extinguished in the settlement.
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And it comes at a cost. The “Ibanez” claims are important, as Massachusetts law clearly states that foreclosures without the underlying proof in the documents are illegal. And like other states – New York, Delaware – she can continue her MERS claims. But the deceptive practices are gone. That includes her claim that dual track, the practice of setting up a loan modification for and foreclosing on a homeowner at the same time, is a deceptive practice. That’s gone. And in the servicing part of the settlement, which you can see a draft of here, dual track is merely “restricted.” The banks have to complete a nominal review of a loan modification application before moving to foreclose.
Jobless Claims Unexpectedly Fall to 358,000
Claims for jobless benefits fell for the second straight week, suggesting the labor market recovery is gaining momentum.
The four-week moving average of first-time applications for unemployment insurance benefits -- which smoothes out weekly fluctuations -- tumbled to 366,250, a decrease of 11,000 from the previous week's revised average of 377,250. That's the lowest since April 26, 2008.
Tesla Model X all-electric crossover unveiled and detailed
On the eve of February 9th, 2012, it was in Hawthorne California that the public first saw the Tesla Motors Model X electric crossover vehicle. This lovely vehicle has the look of other premium crossovers such as the Acura ZDX or the BMW 5 Series Gran Turismo and is made to fit in with that niche on the outside whilst having massive amounts of space inside for a full family of riders. This vehicle is fully electric and therefor has a different set of needs as far as space for its motor components go – here showing clearly the benefits of not needing the much larger internal combustion engine.
In Washington, Fear the Silence, Not the Noise
The Campaign Against Whistleblowers in Washington
Yet, extreme as use of the Espionage Act against government insiders and whistleblowers may be, it’s only one part of the Obama administration’s attempt to sideline, if not always put away, those it wants to silence. Increasingly, federal agencies or departments intent on punishing a whistleblower are also resorting to extra-legal means. They are, for instance, manipulating personnel rules that cannot be easily challenged and do not require the production of evidence. And sometimes, they are moving beyond traditional notions of "punishment" and simply seeking to destroy the lives of those who dissent.
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Without allowing any rebuttal or defense, State suspended my security clearance, claiming my blogging was an example of “poor judgment,” transferred me from a substantive job into a meaningless telework position, threatened felony conviction over alleged disclosure of classified information, illegally banned me from entering the building where I supposedly work, and continues to try to harass and intimidate me.
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I am told as well that State Department officials are increasingly moving to suspend security clearances for acts wholly outside the realm of security, like blogging they find offensive. One State Department Human Resources employee confided to me that this has, in fact, become the go-to strategy for winnowing out unwanted employees in the too-hard-to-fire category, a sad evolution, given the sorry history of the State Department in the McCarthy era.
Bradley Manning to face formal trial on February 23
The formal trial stage in the case of the WikiLeaks suspect Bradley Manning will begin on February 23, the US military has announced, when the soldier will be arraigned on all 22 counts relating to the largest leak of state secrets in American history.
Manning will be transferred on that day from his current imprisonment at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas to Fort Meade in Maryland, where he will be read all the charges against him and asked to give his plea. It will be the first occasion that he has come in front of a military judge representing the full power of the court martial system.
Rotten Recovery for Women
Take those January jobs numbers. That official unemployment fell to 8.3 percent from 9.1 percent a year ago was cause for good cheer amongst the instant expert crowd, but the light at the end of the tunnel was harder to make out if you were female, young, old or a person of color.
In January, black women (12.6 percent), black men (12.7 percent), Hispanic women (11.3 percent), Hispanic men (10.7 percent) and single mothers (12 percent) all had unemployment rates substantially higher than the national average. For young people 16–19, it was 23.1 percent. For young African-Americans, it was 38.5 percent. Is this the new normal? (You can read the data for yourself here.)
BCBG Kicks Off NY Fashion Week
Elections Are For Suckers
by Robert Scheer
The generally reserved New York Times editorial page responded to the Obama campaign’s decision to seek super PAC funding with a scathing editorial headlined “Another Campaign for Sale.” The Times reminded that Barack Obama, in his State of the Union speech two years ago, called out the Supreme Court justices sitting before him over their decision to free special interests from campaign spending limits. “I don’t think American elections should be bankrolled by America’s most powerful interests,” Obama said then. “They should be decided by the American people.” But sadly, as the Times editorial noted this week, “On Monday, the President abandoned that fundamental principle and gave in to the culture of the Citizens United decision that he once denounced as a ‘threat to our democracy.’ ”
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Saban may be one of the more idealistic mega-donors the pro-Obama Priorities USA Action PAC is now courting. Less savory, if one cares about the hold that Wall Street has exerted over this administration, are some of the top donors Obama aides met with Tuesday to urge that they contribute to the PAC. The list included Hamilton E. James, the president of the huge private equity firm Blackstone, and Robert Wolf, the chairman of UBS Group Americas.
Gay marriage fight may hinge on Supreme Court's Anthony Kennedy
Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, 75, often holds the court's deciding vote on the major issues that divide its liberals and conservatives. More often than not, that vote has swung the court to the right. But on gay rights, Kennedy has been anything but a "culture wars" conservative.
One of his opinions lauded the intimacy between same-sex couples and demanded "respect for their private lives," provoking Justice Antonin Scalia to accuse him of having "signed on to the so-called homosexual agenda."
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Based on Kennedy's past opinions, Karlan is confident that if the Supreme Court takes up the issue of California's same-sex marriage ban, "it means Prop. 8 is going down to defeat," she said. "There is no way he will take it to reinstate" the ban.
Israel vs. Iran: The Truth Slips Out
by Ira Chernus
If these WaPo journalists are right -- and my forty years of studying the issue tells me they are -- what really makes Israeli leaders feel insecure is their fear of not having their power respected. To gain that respect, they’ll talk endlessly about their planning to attack Iran. Perhaps one day they’ll do it, as long as Obama doesn’t raise the red light.
The main thing holding him back is election-year anxiety of his own, fueled by the millions of voters who honestly believe that Israel’s existence is constantly in peril. Why shouldn’t they believe it, when the journalists they depend on for their information repeat that myth endlessly, while they hint at the full truth only in rare sentences that get lost amid the flood of words that evoke fear.
But how tragic that a president has to worry about voters punishing him if he puts U.S. interests above Israel’s desire to symbolize its military strength and resolve.
CIA to Maintain Sizable Presence in Iraq and Afghanistan
The Washington Post reports that the CIA has plans to maintain a robust operation in both countries after conventional operations have wound down, underscoring the military's broader shift towards clandestine, targeted operations undertaken by CIA agents or Special Forces commandoes.
Officials told the Post that Afghanistan and Iraq were likely to be the CIA's largest outposts for years to come, reflecting a conviction that the two countries remain critical to defending American security concerns. Agents in Afghanistan are expected to continue paramilitary operations that include partnering with Special Operations forces to target members of the Taliban.
Azerbaijan Tower: The Next Tallest Building in the World? (SLIDESHOW)
A new contender for the world's tallest building has emerged.
Avesta Group's Azerbaijian Tower is set to rise more than a kilometer in height, to around 3,444 feet and 189 floors. It would surpass the 2,723-foot Burj Khalifa in Dubai, currently the world's tallest building, as well as the planned Kingdom Tower in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
The skyscraper would sit off Baku, the Azeri capital, on the Khazar Islands, a chain of 41 man-made pieces of land in the Caspian Sea. The tower is the centerpiece for a massive, $100 billion mixed-use master plan with housing, schools, retail and a Formula 1 racetrack.