A Village Called Versailles

Which Democrats Just Voted against Food Stamp Funding? Read below the fold...

Obama to headline April DCCC fundraiser in Calif.

President Obama will headline his first Democratic fundraiser of the 2014 election cycle at an event next month in San Francisco with House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif).

Pelosi open to looking at Obama proposal to cut Social Security Read below the fold...

Once again, Washington, DC has been rated one of America's drunkest cities.

While on average DC drinks a modest 16.6 alcoholic drinks a month, 20.1% of our population are classified as binge drinkers.

I have written about this before: Read below the fold...

Obama Orders Pay Raise For Congress, Federal Workers, Joe Biden

Obama is not stupid. He knows that a pay raise at this time, under these circumstances, will inspire contempt on the part of the public. Popular contempt for Congress serves his interests. Read below the fold...

I woke up Sunday AM and by habit, tuned in to CBS news radio. The dulcet tones of news guy Harley Carnes related how radioactive bluefish tuna swam all the way from Japan to our west coast. And then he told us not to worry; the fish were perfectly OK to eat since the added radioactivity was only 2% of what occurs naturally.

You first, Harley.

I tried to find a verifying transcript, but all I could locate was this thread comment on an obscure site:

but harley carnes on kcbs said it was ok to eat, according to the "official"

so, num,num

sushi anyone

If you listen closely, you can hear an elite "Haw haw haw!!" from Versailles. Read below the fold...

Talks set out terms of US mortgage deal

The banks would receive less credit if they reduce balances for loans packaged in bonds or by reducing monthly payments through cuts in borrowers’ interest rates. In one scenario, the banks would get about 50 cents of credit for every $1 of reduced mortgage principal in home loans used to back bonds. In another scenario, balances on loans held on the banks’ books that are cut in the first year of the deal would receive $1.25 credit. This means, under certain circumstances, the aid to homeowners would be less than the aggregate size of the settlement, people familiar with the matter said.

Read below the fold...

Steve Clemons. You could not make this up. Read below the fold...

Jack Lew: Obama's OMB Pick Oversaw Citigroup Unit That Shorted Housing Market

Corzine wasn't available? Read below the fold...

Democrats’ New Super Committee Proposal Includes $400 Billion In Medicare And Medicaid Cuts

Democrats on the Super Committee are offering a $2.3 trillion tax-and-cut proposal “that includes $400 billion in Medicare and Medicaid reductions,” but only if Republicans compromise by putting new tax revenues on the table, Politico reports.

Read below the fold...

'Back to the Source': Members of Debt Panel Have Ties to Lobbyists

The Washington Post article uses GE as a case study to discuss the almost 100 registered lobbyists who are former employees of super committee members and are now "representing defense companies, health-care conglomerates, Wall Street banks and others with a vested interest in the outcome of the panel's work

." Read below the fold...

Harry Reid says he'd favor Huntsman over Romney

Why is he even commenting on the Republican race? Can you imagine any previous party leader making a remark like this?

Get the feeling that our parasitic overlords have selected Huntsman? Read below the fold...

If I were King of the World, I would order a massive blog swarm with the subject line JOBS.

It has been a long time since there was a true netroots blogswarm, so long I cannot even remember. But maybe if we picked one day, assuming we could reassemble a long since shattered coalition, and posted about jobs, we could get the attention of our benighted elite.

Just a thought. Read below the fold...

Democrats won in 2006 and 2008 because Bush messed up and the economy was a mess. Also Katrina and Iraq.

So what did the Republicans learn? When the economy is a mess the incumbent party loses power. So clearly to the Republicans, they needed to do whatever necessary to mess up the economy even more.

It seemed to me that initially the Republicans were worried that Obama would try to be FDR 2.0 and were determined to block his actions. Clearly they need not have worried. Obama does not seem to think that unemployment is a serious political problem for him and he might even be correct. Read below the fold...

apres moi, le deluge Read below the fold...

Scott Pelley interviews Ben Bernanke:

Asked if it's tax money the Fed is spending, Bernanke said, "It's not tax money. The banks have accounts with the Fed, much the same way that you have an account in a commercial bank. So, to lend to a bank, we simply use the computer to mark up the size of the account that they have with the Fed. It's much more akin to printing money than it is to borrowing."

"You've been printing money?" Pelley asked.

"Well, effectively," Bernanke said.

This quote captures it all, which is why Warren Mosler used it in his book. Read below the fold...