Halliburton, of Iraq War profiteering fame, has plead guilty to destroying evidence related to the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill. For its crime the company will pay a measly $200,000 as the Department of Justice agreed not to pursue further charges against the company.
   

Halliburton has agreed to plead guilty to destruction of critical evidence after the Gulf of Mexico oil spill in 2010, the Justice Department announced on Thursday.

    The oil services company said it would pay the maximum allowable fine of $200,000 and will be subject to three years of probation. It will also continue its cooperation in the government's criminal investigation.

[snip]

    The Justice Department filed one criminal charge against the company. In a statement, Halliburton said that the violation was a misdemeanor associated with the deletion of records created after the accident. Additionally, the company said, "The Department of Justice has agreed that it will not pursue further criminal prosecution of the company."

   The obituary of Rep. Justin Amash's amendment to claw back the sweeping powers of the National Security Agency has largely been written as a victory for the White House and NSA chief Keith Alexander, who lobbied the Hill aggressively in the days and hours ahead of Wednesday's shockingly close vote. But Hill sources say most of the credit for the amendment's defeat goes to someone else: House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi. It's an odd turn, considering that Pelosi has been, on many occasions, a vocal surveillance critic.

    But ahead of the razor-thin 205-217 vote, which would have severely limited the NSA's ability to collect data on Americans' telephone records if passed, Pelosi privately and aggressively lobbied wayward Democrats to torpedo the amendment, a Democratic committee aid with knowledge of the deliberations tells The Cable.

    "Pelosi had meetings and made a plea to vote against the amendment and that had a much bigger effect on swing Democratic votes against the amendment than anything Alexander had to say," said the source, keeping in mind concerted White House efforts to influence Congress by Alexander and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper. "Had Pelosi not been as forceful as she had been, it's unlikely there would've been more Democrats for the amendment."

    With 111 liberal-to-moderate Democrats voting for the amendment alongside 94 Republicans, the vote in no way fell along predictable ideological fault lines. And for a particular breed of Democrat, Pelosi's overtures proved decisive, multiple sources said.

So, what was the letter she sent to Obama all about?  Cover against the inevitable "lefty" anger?

"Dear Mr. President," reads the letter. "Although the amendment was defeated 205-217, it is clear that concerns remain about the continued implementation of the program in its current form. Although some of us voted for and others against the amendment, we all agree that there are lingering questions and concerns about the current 215 collection program."

The letter goes on to question whether the bulk metadata collection program sufficiently protects the privacy of Americans, whether it could be tailored more narrowly and whether the law is being implemented in a manner consistent with Congress's intent. An aide later emphasized that Pelosi did note declare an official leadership position against the amendment, meaning there was no whip or count established to see how Democrats would vote.

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WASHINGTON (AP) -- The House Ethics Committee is launching a full-tilt investigation of Republican Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota.

The committee announced on Friday it had received a referral from the Office of Congressional Ethics, an independent investigative body, and said in a brief statement that it would formally investigate the one-time Republican presidential candidate. link

Sounds great.

The looming prospect of a tiny jail cell with a couple of hours of daylight and a shower or two shared with some fine fellows once a week for the next thirty years ain't so bad.

Gotta keep remembering:
The crime is not all the bugging and snooping and Constitution-shredding by Aunties Eric and Barry, it is the revelation of these activities.

Heat Beater: Police Discover Swimming Pool on Wheels

A BMW convertible first aroused the suspicions of a motorcycle cop on patrol in the eastern German town of Eibenstock when water sloshed out of it as it drove around a curve. When the officer pulled the car over, he could hardly believe his eyes.

In a police report released on Monday, he described encountering"a convertible of a slightly different kind." The car had been converted into a swimming pool on wheels complete with a wooden railing and cheap floral decoration that could have come out of a chintzy Hawaiian hotel.

In addition to the driver, the officer also found two young men sitting inside in bathing suits and a third sitting on the trunk, dipping his feet in the "pool". The car reportedly only had one functioning gear, but could travel at speeds of up to 25 kilometers per hour (15.5 mph). The vehicle was also lacking a license plate ...

The other, more surprising factor helping Yellen with Wall Street seems to be concern about Summers' personality. Yellen is personally a lot more like Bernanke -- soft-spoken, collegial, academic -- while Summers occasionally has the temperament of a raccoon that has just been thrown down the stairs. more at Hullabaloo

 Dr. Yellen  currently serves as the Federal Reserve vice-chair bringing a particular focus on getting workers back on their jobs.  Dr. Yellen enjoys the support of key Democratic senators, including Dick Durbin and Patty Murray.

Summers and Yellen disagree on how much harder to push for economic growth; Summers has questioned the benefits of the Fed's efforts to stimulate the economy, but, according, to a professor at George Mason University, Summers has more "right-wing street cred"  which may endear him to the Obama administration.  

In my view, Summers is too smart for his, and our, own good.  The man seems to have an inverse Midas Touch.  An example of his judgment can be seen in his tenure as president of Harvard University--a job he lost after five years, following no confidence and censure votes by the Arts and Sciences faculty.

 Summers managed with apparent ease to compile a record of mis-steps that included unusual direct presidential intrusion into faculty evaluation (Cornell West affair); his infamous suggestion as to why women were underrepresented in sciences and engineering (intrinsic aptitudes and variability); toxic support for a faculty friend in a US governmental conflict/false claim charge that cost Harvard about $28 million; and losses on a Harvard interest-rate gamble to the tune of almost $1 billion.

He was one of my all-time favorites, and I'll simply let his music speak for him.

WASHINGTON -- House Republicans plan a 40th attempt at repealing Obamacare next week, with legislation that would block the Internal Revenue Service from enforcing or implementing any portion of the health care reform law. link

After the 33 attempt to repeal Obamacare, Congressional Research Service estimated the cost:

CBS' Nancy Cordes reported Wednesday that Republicans' many fruitless attempts at repealing the Affordable Care Act have taken up at least 80 hours of time on the House floor since 2010, amounting to two full work weeks. As the House, according to the Congressional Research Service, costs taxpayers $24 million a week to operate, those two weeks amounted to a total cost of approximately $48 million. link

They have probably spent another $10,000 on their continued grandstanding. They are making a major push to cut all domestic programs yet are willing to throw money down the toilet for these stunts. How could this money be better spent:

That $50 million spent blowing hot air could have provided subsidies for about 4,500 families of four in the exchanges, or one year of foodstamps for 31,131 people.

PARIS (AP) -- Former International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn will have to defend himself in a French court on charges of aggravated pimping despite recommendations by prosecutors that the charges be dropped.

Judges investigating the case in the northern city of Lille decided on Friday to go ahead with charges of aggravated pimping in a group. link

In our town, the 911 dispatch system recently went down for 15 hours, and no one seemed to give a damn. When the system is running, the average wait is 58 minutes. Firefighters can't use hydraulic ladders on fire trucks to do their jobs unless there is an "immediate threat to life." In a fire -- imagine that. The ladders haven't been inspected in years.

If this were New York, these stories would have ricocheted around the world. But this is Detroit and, of course, nobody gives a damn. Even here people have been conditioned to accept these things as normal, a nuisance, the buzz of a fly.

This numbness, in a peculiar way, is a sign of strength. People here manage to get along somehow.

So we went broke, bust, bankrupt. We've known that in Detroit for years. Only now it is official with a Chapter 9 filing last week. The biggest municipal default in United States history -- at least $18 billion. Suddenly, America gives a rip.

How did it get this way, I'm asked? After all, it was just 99 years ago that Henry Ford offered the workingman $5 a day and profit-sharing. How, in less than a century, did it come to this?

The short answers: municipal mismanagement, race riots, white flight, black flight, dead flight (people routinely disinter their deceased and relocate them to the suburbs). There were the overreaching unions and management that couldn't balance a ball. Proof? The multibillion-dollar bailout of the auto industry. Thank you, American taxpayers!

NBC announced that it will air a four-hour miniseries titled Hillary about Hillary Clinton starring Diane Lane as the former secretary of state at the 2013 Summer Press Tour on Saturday. While no airdate has been set as the project is currently in the early stages, NBC's president Bob Greenblatt said the miniseries would likely air before Clinton formally declares herself as a presidential candidate in 2016.

I was scheduled to work over in Hilo that day, but I've since postponed my trip until later in the week, because it's expected to be a mess.

But in the meantime, I'm watching the Dodgers on our new 56" HD TV, while the cat sleeps on my lap. Skip Schumacher just hit a 2-run HR in the bottom of the 5th to give the Blue Crew a 3-1 lead. Spouse and Elder Daughter are out shopping.