By Associated Press, Updated: Monday, February 4, 8:11 PM
US CHARGES SEEN AGAINST S&P: The U.S. government is expected to file civil charges against Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services, alleging that it improperly gave high ratings to mortgage debt that later plunged in value and helped fuel the 2008 financial crisis.Read full article.
Congressional hearing Oct 2008 had lots of testimony that rating agencies were selling triple-A ratings on toxic CDOs when both the sellers and the rating agencies knew they weren't worth triple-A. Commentary at the time was that the rating agencies would likely avoid federal prosecution by blackmailing the gov. with threat of gov. rating downgrade.
The crew members aboard the USS Underwood could see through their night goggles what was happening on the fleeing go-fast boat: Someone was dumping bales.
When the Navy guided-missile frigate later dropped anchor in Panamanian waters on that sunny August morning, Ensign Clarissa Carpio, a 23-year-old from San Francisco, climbed into the inflatable dinghy with four unarmed sailors and two Coast Guard officers like herself, carrying light submachine guns. It was her first deployment, but Carpio was ready for combat.
Fighting drug traffickers was precisely what she'd trained for.
In the most expensive initiative in Latin America since the Cold War, the U.S. has militarized the battle against the traffickers, spending more than $20 billion in the past decade. U.S. Army troops, Air Force pilots and Navy ships outfitted with Coast Guard counternarcotics teams are routinely deployed to chase, track and capture drug smugglers.
The sophistication and violence of the traffickers is so great that the U.S. military is training not only law enforcement agents in Latin American nations, but their militaries as well, building a network of expensive hardware, radar, airplanes, ships, runways and refueling stations to stem the tide of illegal drugs from South America to the U.S.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Well, speaking of secretary of defense, Chuck Hagel, who, David, the president wants to be the secretary of defense, hearing yesterday, confirmation hearing before the Senate, pretty rough going.
What did you take away from that?
DAVID BROOKS: Yes, I thought it was terrible. I thought he did a very poor job.
And we have interviewed him. We have — Mark and I have said nice things about him. I certainly have enjoyed the interviews I have had with him, but he really did a bad job. He projected weakness, which is not something you want in a secretary of defense. He could not even respond to freshman senators with any force or vigor.
He projected a guy who hadn't prepared. Some of these questions were obvious questions, about the surge, about some of the things he had said on Al-Jazeera. You have got to have an answer. It's like somebody who walks into a big moment of their life without having done their homework.
And so I still think he will be confirmed on more or less party-line votes. But if it was up to sort of a looking for a boost of — a sign of competence, this wasn't it.
Was it because his Obama administration handlers gave him awful advice? Peter Beinart on how Hagel prepared for the hearings.
EXTRACT
If the aim of the hearings was simply to make sure Hagel gets confirmed, all this may not matter very much. After the hearings, three important Senate Democrats—New York’s Kirsten Gillibrand, Connecticut’s Richard Blumenthal, and Colorado’s Mark Udall—said they would support Hagel. And if the Democrats hold firm, as it appears they will, it’s unlikely the Republicans will be able to mount an effective filibuster. But if the aim of the hearings was also to begin building a case for Obama’s second term foreign policy—a foreign policy that brings military spending into balance with economic resources and aggressively pursues diplomacy with Iran, and maybe Israel and the Palestinians too—Hagel failed. And if he continues to fail as a foreign policy spokesman once confirmed, that second term agenda will be harder to achieve.
Watching the Senate Armed Services Committee interact Thursday with former Republican Senator Chuck Hagel-President Obama's candidate to be secretary of defense-was a profoundly depressing experience.
Hagel's performance in his “confirmation” hearing was remarkable; he spent the day eating his own words under pressure mostly from Republicans-so much so that it is hard to understand what views he might actually hold.
Unlike most effective politicians who are always clever at saying nothing or changing positions, he was so inarticulate at doing so that it is also hard to understand how he ever could have been elected twice to the Senate from Nebraska.
As fumbling and apologetic as Hagel's answers were to the members of the Senate Armed Services Committee, even my low expectations for the performance of the senators on that committee went unmet.
Outgoing Defense Secretary Leon Panetta is slated to testify before lawmakers on the Benghazi attacks, Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), the Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, told reporters Tuesday.
Hagel's legislative record belies his potential role as bit player on the stage of the American empire, unlikely to wield the kind of influence suggested by the controversy over his nomination.
Ideological elements of both the Left and the Right have inflated the nomination of Chuck Hagel for Secretary of Defense to symbolize far more than he can possibly achieve in office, good or bad. The controversy over his nomination is based on a handful of his comments and valedictory Senate addresses. His actual legislative record is a lot thinner. From my time as a Senate staffer, I do not remember any significant legislation he was personally responsible for, nor did he involve himself to any great extent in floor debates on authorization or appropriation bills having to do with national security.
