ProPublica's Cora Currier explains that because government-owned Freddie and fannie won't get on board, millions will miss out on the big mortgage settlement announced today.

emptywheel says the deal should be seen for what it is, a bank bailout. Borrowers are releasing the banks from liability for "a $1,800-$2,000 check if they sign up for it, the equivalent of saying to them 'sorry we stole your home, here’s two months rent.'"

Robert Kuttner describes the deal as "pretty thin gruel", writing that the plan will have little impact if authorities refuse to prosecute banks.

Via Raw Story, here's my happy thought for the day.

Appearing on CBS This Morning on Thuesday, J.C. Penny CEO Ron Johnson put an end to the so-called controversy over talk show host Ellen DeGeneres being picked as the company’s spokeswoman.

“She shares the same values that we do,” he said. “Our company was founded 110 years ago on the golden rule, as about treating people fair and square, just like you’d be treated yourself. We think that Ellen represents the values of our company and the values that we share.”

I need to find an excuse to go shopping at J.C. Penny. That stance is worth a few bucks in support.

Enclosed within this article is a hint that the Times of New York could get their hands on the real story, if they wanted to:

When Fred Wilson, a prominent New York venture capitalist who has backed Twitter and Zynga, wanted to watch the Knicks game last month, he got an unpleasant surprise. Time Warner Cable was not showing the game because of a contract dispute.

Frustrated, he turned to the Internet for help. Within minutes he was streaming the game illegally on his big-screen TV. [...]

My read on the current fever pitch of "bomb, bomb, bomb Iran" rhetoric coming from Israel, its supporters and general intervention-loving warmongers in the U.S. is that it is mostly a "coercive public diplomacy campaign", part of a strategy of strategic ambiguity designed to bring Iran humbly to the negotiating table. But I know that there are many in the foreign policy community who are now convinced that Israel will launch a strike by July at the latest unless the U.S. can dissuade it or Iran's intractability unexpectedly crumbles.

I'd really hate to be wrong on this but the word from some "in the know" is that the Obama administration is trying to head the Israelis off from taking unilateral action that would be disasterous for the U.S. Thus Panetta and Clapper's recent warnings about the danger of an Israeli strike, the leak of Dempsey's warning to Israel that it would be on its own - and thus leaks like this one:

Deadly attacks on Iranian nuclear scientists are being carried out by an Iranian dissident group that is financed, trained and armed by Israel’s secret service, U.S. officials tell NBC News, confirming charges leveled by Iran’s leaders.

The group, the People’s Mujahedin of Iran, has long been designated as a terrorist group by the United States, accused of killing American servicemen and contractors in the 1970s and supporting the takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran before breaking with the Iranian mullahs in 1980.

Introducing Amnesia!

Er, Amasia...

Here are the grafs from the WaPo report on its latest polling that have today drawn comment from Glenn Greenwald, David Dayen and many others, including on the right. All are crying "hypocrisy".

A new Washington Post-ABC News poll shows that Obama, who campaigned on a pledge to close the brig at Guantanamo Bay and to change national security policies he criticized as inconsistent with U.S. law and values, has little to fear politically for failing to live up to all of those promises.

The survey shows that 70 percent of respondents approve of Obama’s decision to keep open the prison at Guantanamo Bay. He pledged during his first week in office to close the prison within a year. But he has not done so.

Even the party base appears willing to forgive that failure.

The poll shows that 53 percent of self-identified liberal Democrats — and 67 percent of moderate or conservative Democrats — support keeping Guantanamo Bay open, even though it emerged as a symbol of the post-Sept. 11 national security policies of George W. Bush, which many liberals bitterly opposed.

Obama has also relied on armed drones far more than Bush did, and he has expanded their use beyond America’s defined war zones. The Post-ABC News poll found that 83 percent of Americans approve of Obama’s drone policy, which administration officials refuse to discuss, citing security concerns.

The president only recently acknowledged the drone program, which some human rights advocates say operates without a clear legal framework and in violation of the U.S. prohibition against assassination.

But fully 77 percent of liberal Democrats endorse the use of drones, meaning that Obama is unlikely to suffer any political consequences as a result of his policy in this election year.

Greece and her debt is back in the news, ahead of a possible default on bonds valued at 14.5 billion euros next month.

Greece is asking for 130 billion euros to give it some stability going forward. The bone of contention is apparently pension reform. 300 million euros stand between Greece and 130 billion euros.

Go fig.

This is not the first time Greece has been in imminent danger of collapse. Just two years ago, you may recall, in the face of violent opposition from her people, Greece agreed to an austerity program to avoid default (and forcible ejection from the EU).

There's a "must read" piece from Anthony Shadid in the NY Times today, "Libya Struggles to Curb Militias as Chaos Grows". It describes the interim Libyan government as paralyzed by its lack of power to control competing militias with local grievances and an abundance of arms. "This is destruction! We're destroying Libya with our bare hands," says one militia commander trying to restore calm after a firefight with another militia in Tripoli.

An Obama supporter joins a progressive web forum. Predictable results follow. h/t lambert

Shorter version of the neocon think-tank's latest fearmongering: "Russia is still the real enemy! EMP! Iran missiles in New York! Chavez With Nukes! Aargh! Obama Bad! Brilliant Pebbles!!!!"

It always comes back to Reaganesque "Star Wars" weapons in space for Heritage. The wingnuts don't want missile defense systems to protect against rogue states. They want them so that the U.S. can attack Russia or China with a better chance of success than Russia or China could attack America. I looked hard at their wish for a U.S. first strike capability as part of their dreams of American hegemony back in 2008 and nothing about their position has changed since then.

Read the whole of Bill McKibben's excellent post at MoJo but this really jumped out at me.

If we spew 565 gigatons more carbon into the atmosphere, we'll quite possibly go right past that reddest of red lines. But the oil companies, private and state-owned, have current reserves on the books equivalent to 2,795 gigatons—five times more than we can ever safely burn. It has to stay in the ground.

Put another way, in ecological terms it would be extremely prudent to write off $20 trillion worth of those reserves. In economic terms, of course, it would be a disaster, first and foremost for shareholders and executives of companies like ExxonMobil (and people in places like Venezuela).

If you run an oil company, this sort of write-off is the disastrous future staring you in the face as soon as climate change is taken as seriously as it should be, and that's far scarier than drought and flood. It's why you'll do anything—including fund an endless campaigns of lies—to avoid coming to terms with its reality.

Thus the carbon bubble: "the business models at the center of our economy are in the deepest possible conflict with physics and chemistry".

There's remarkably little coverage in U.S. news of ongoing protests in Bahrain, so I'm indebted to AE Worldview for this footage and interview with Nabeel Rajab, the president of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights.

How Police Attacked the Manama March and Beat Me.

"I told him we were close to the end of our march, back to where we started, and we just wanted to complete the round trip and it would just take 10 minutes."

The officer still would not budge from his demand for the gathering to go home.

"I said it was up to him and that he should not use violence, but if he does, the marchers wouldn't react because violence wasn't the solution."

The officer gave them five minutes to disperse. In fact, the attack began 90 seconds later.

The CSMonitor's Nicholas Blanford today writes that "diplomats and analysts say Western and Arab officials are mulling an option of military support for the rebel Free Syrian Army," the Sunni main opposition to Assad's Shiite regime. Despite the continued shelling of the Sunni stronghold city of Homs by Syrian government forces, now into its fifth day, the UNSC vetoes of China and Russia as well as military appreciation that Syria is not like Libya seems to have taken a "colaition of the willing" direct intervention off the table. Blanford quotes Andrew Exum of the CNAS think-tank in Washington, a group acknowledged as a primary driver of the Obama administration's foreign and military thinking.

Just the day after the Appelate court in California took down Proposition 8 in a slam-fest against the legislature, one of the couples that started the whole ball rolling announced they are divorcing

It's finally come to pass: gay divorces are making news.

They interview candy

That's sort of the take-away I get from the 9th Circuit decision on the case against Proposition 8 in California.

The relevant paragraph:

"Proposition 8 serves no purpose, and has no effect, other than to lessen the status and human dignity of gays and lesbians in California, and to officially reclassify their relationships and families as inferior to those of opposite-sex couples," states the opinion written by Judge Stephen Reinhardt, one of the court's most liberal judges.

This is probably not the way a junta should operate, at least internationally:

(CAIRO) — Egypt's ruling generals are playing a risky game of brinksmanship by cracking down on American nonprofit groups that promote democracy, threatening a relationship with Washington that has brought the military billions of dollars in aid over the past three decades.

The generals may be betting the U.S. cannot afford to cut relations with Egypt — a cornerstone of American Mideast policy. But the ruling military council may also fear it has much more than foreign aid to lose if it fully embraces a democratic transition that could bring civilian oversight of its substantial financial assets and curb its long-standing domination of politics.

This is simply awesome.

The world's oldest works of art have been found in a cave on Spain's Costa del Sol, scientists believe.

Six paintings of seals are at least 42,000 years old and are the only known artistic images created by Neanderthal man, experts claim.

Professor Jose Luis Sanchidrian, from the University of Cordoba, described the discovery as 'an academic bombshell', as all previous art work has been attributed to Homo sapiens.

Spanish scientists sent organic residue found next to the paintings to Miami, where they were dated at being between 43,500 and 42,300 years old.

In 2010, archaeologist João Zilhão at the University of Bristol found 50,000-year-old jewelry at two caves in southeastern Spain, art dating back 10,000 years before the fossil record reveals evidence of modern humans entering Europe. The oldest art by homo sapiens is some 75,000 years old and was found in South Africa in 2002.

This new find shifts back the earliest known hominid painted art by 10,000 years, and away from being exclusively a creation of homo sapiens. That's mind-blowing. Still, the thought that our neanderthal cousins had the kind of complex mental states and rich culture needed for art is just a warm fuzzy on a day when I've read so much depressing news.

Poor Mitt Romney. (No, not really.) Having been lambasted for being richer than God - and paying a lower tax rate than the Deity too - he has tried to get some "compassionate conservative" chops back by advocating linking the minimum wage to inflation.

Oops.

Romney's comments have caused concern among conservatives inside and outside the party.

"It goes to show he's still very defensive about his own wealth," Steve Forbes, the publishing magnate who made his own bids for the presidency in 1996 and 2000, told Yahoo News. "All it does is give the base another reason to be unenthusiastic about him."

Via the WSJ, a new Brookings study (PDF) says the Chinese currency will become an international reserve currency within the next decade, "eroding but not displacing the dollar’s dominance."

I'm a little leery of citing the UK Independent's Robert Fisk for various reasons, but this seems right to me.

President Bashar al-Assad is not about to go. Not yet. Not, maybe, for quite a long time. ...look east, and what does Bashar see? Loyal Iran standing with him. Loyal Iraq – Iran's new best friend in the Arab world – refusing to impose sanctions. And to the west, loyal little Lebanon refusing to impose sanctions. Thus from the border of Afghanistan to the Mediterranean, Assad has a straight line of alliances which should prevent, at least, his economic collapse.

The Obama campaign press release punts the move as one of practical necessity.

The President opposed the Citizens United decision. He understood that with the dramatic growth in opportunities to raise and spend unlimited special-interest money, we would see new strategies to hide it from public view. He continues to support a law to force full disclosure of all funding intended to influence our elections, a reform that was blocked in 2010 by a unanimous Republican filibuster in the U.S. Senate. And the President favors action—by constitutional amendment, if necessary—to place reasonable limits on all such spending.

But this cycle, our campaign has to face the reality of the law as it currently stands.

The Fatah and Hamas factions of the Palestinian people have come to an understanding on a pact to unify the factions. Mahmoud Abbas will continue to be the chief executive for the interim, supported by an independently elected cabinet until full elections can be organized.

This surprising move brings the Gaza Palestinians and the West Bank Palestinians together.

Understandably, the Arab street as reflected by its press, is uncertain. Note in particular the Israeli reactions.

I suppose there's good reason. When they aren't squaring off against Israeli forces, the two factions have been at each other's throats. This is not conducive to settling the larger issues at hand.

...may not be exaggerated. But the acknowledgement may be delayed.
David Carter Found Dead In Foreclosed Home As Many As Four Years After Suicide (VIDEO) Huffington Post
By Henry Bradford Feb 6

"Abandoned homes have become an increasingly common sight amidst a national foreclosure crisis. Yet what may lurk forgotten behind closed doors may be much worse than nothing at all.

"A Milwaukee real estate agent entered one such house last month after it was repossessed due to tax foreclosure -- the government can foreclose on a home if taxes and subsequent fees are not paid off within a designated time period -- to find a sight he's not likely to forget soon. The body of the owner David Carter was found on the stairs in a "nearly skeletonized" state after being left there undiscovered for what investigators believe to be up to four years, The Daily Mail reports."

Bradford ties in another story and, in doing so, he creates a new genre, theater of the absurd vérité: "A Florida woman is currently suing her lender, JPMorgan Chase, after the bank mistakenly declared her deceased in 2010, which she claimed ruined her credit score." Seriously, why should there even be a law suit? What is so wrong with JPMorgan that they would not settle this right away. Never mind justice and common decency, this makes them look even worse than they already look.

Welcome to Tuesday Muse, the successor to A Poem for Tuesday. Think of it as "A (Poem + Painting + Spoken Word + Music + Performance Art + Sculpture + Noise + Mash + Animation + Story + Photography + Public Art + Multimedia + Theater Performance + Anything Art) for Tuesday." Today: Playing for Change, whose muse builds a song by having a crew travel the world to record one stellar musician after another, sometimes in remote outdoor locations, in such a way that each musician can hear and play to what the others have done while adding his or her own piece. It's like building a choir a person at a time while leapfrogging assumed barriers of geography, genre, and culture. It's also grown to be about more than songs: PFC is now building music schools in impoverished locales and is sponsoring social-change concerts. Founder Mark Johnson explains here how PFC's recording process works. And here is their version of Gimme Shelter: