European central bank socializes costs of mortgage mess

Atkins, Shellock, and Tett, FT:

Short-term market interest rates in the eurozone plunged at their fastest rate for more than a decade on Tuesday after the European Central Bank stunned investors by pumping a record €348.6bn worth of funds into the markets.

The size of the injection – which was intended to calm the markets over the critical year-end period – was twice as big as the ECB had indicated would have been needed in normal circumstances. ...

a number of analysts fear banks are hoarding funds because they fear further big credit losses next year.




The sum sounds huge, but it’s not because it’s short term lending. As a SWAG, they are trickling out something like (very, very approximately) 15 million per day to the banks. Still, if any of the banks go down while they’re holding the ECB’s money, it could get more expensive at a very rapid rate.

Details of Siegelman persecution emerge

Scott Horton of Harper’s and Larisa’s team at Raw Story are piecing together how and why Alabama Governor Don Siegelman became the highest ranking political prisoner held by the Bush regime. Here’s a graphic from Larisa’s story to lay out the general outlines of the conspiracy:

Larisa:

[Bill] Canary's wife, Leura Canary, federalized [Alabama Attorney General William] Pryor's investigation [of Siegelman] in 2001, after President George W. Bush appointed her as US Attorney for the Middle District of Alabama. Closely tied to Pryor, whose campaign was advised by her husband, Canary also appointed the wife of the Attorney General's lawyer and close advisor, Christopher Weller, as her first assistant.

Public Service Announcement

It’s that time of year when lots of people send greeting cards.

And sometimes they send e-cards instead of using snail mail.

But sometimes the e-card notification in your email inbox isn’t really a greeting card. It’s a virus delivery system or an attempt at identity theft.

If the message alerting you that you’ve received an electronic greeting doesn’t include the name of the person who sent you the card, the probability approaches 100% that it’s spam. Don’t open it.

Example of the subject line for a legitimate e-card notification:

[Your Friend’s Name Here] has sent you a [Card Site Name] greeting.

Examples of subject lines for a virus delivery system:

You have received a greeting card from a friend!
 

You have received a [Card Site Name] E-Card.
 

A family member has sent you a greeting!

The same warning applies to messages purporting to be from banks and credit unions, credit card companies, eBay, PayPal, Amazon.com, etc. If the message doesn’t include your name, it’s almost certainly a scam.

Don Siegelman: The Man in the Iron Mask

As Charles as previously reported, former Alabama governor Don Siegelman was very likely railroaded into a conviction on corruption charges because he got in the way of Karl Rove’s agenda.

Mark Crispin Miller has more: In September 2004, Gov. Siegelman spoke out about his narrow “loss” in his 2002 re-election campaign, describing the election as outright theft by the GOP machine (pun intended).

Adam Cohen of the New York Times has noted the peculiar coincidences in Siegelman’s case, from the “late-night change in the tallies in Republican Baldwin County” that shifted the 2002 election from Siegelman to his Republican opponent, through the partisan nature of the prosecution for corruption charges to the connection with the Bushevik subversion of the Department of Justice. But for the most part, the so-called mainstream media have ignored Siegelman’s story and its implications for our democracy.

Governor Siegelman cannot speak out on his own behalf. As Miller says,

He’s locked away inside a federal prison cell, and, for good measure, has been silenced by the Alabama courts. As Scott Horton has so aptly put it, Don Siegelman is the Man in the Iron Mask.

So we in the blogosphere will have to spread the word ourselves. Watch the videos in Miller’s blog post, and send the link to everyone you know.

Reid Hears The Base’s Roar, Pulls FISA/Telco Immunity Bill

Check it out.  Reid’ll probably bring it back after the recess, but we will (with Chris Dodd leading the way) just shout it down again. (Really, we don’t need the current “temporary” bill anyway — let it lapse.)

The base has been pissed at the leadership for months.  This is an example of what the base can do for the leadership when they stand up against Bush. 

Here are the number of calls and e-mails that went to Congress just via Dodd’s site; lots more went out via DFA and DailyKos and FDL and Eschaton and Salon, to name just the ones off the top of my head. 

11,300+ people emailed the Senators (16,000 people visited the page, a 75% follow through rate)…

506,000+ emails were sent to the Senate…

5,700+ comments were submitted through the website (350+ were posted on Twitter) in 7 hours…

135+ people joined the Facebook group since 11am…

340 people reported the phone calls they made to the Senate…

Quite simply, between Chris Dodd‘s leadership and your activism, we were able to stop retroactive immunity today. The fight will continue next month, but with support like this I am confident that we can resume this fight and move towards victory.