Lawmaker accuses Fed of "cover-up" in BofA deal

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Federal Reserve sought to hide its involvement in Bank of America Corp's acquisition of Merrill Lynch as Merrill's financial condition worsened, the top Republican on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee said on Wednesday.

The Fed "engaged in a cover-up and deliberately hid concerns and pertinent details regarding the merger from other federal regulatory agencies," Representative Darrell Issa said in a statement released to Reuters.

Bernanke has in the past denied any inappropriate pressure on Bank of America. Fed spokeswoman Michelle Smith on Wednesday referred to a letter Bernanke sent Representative Dennis Kucinich on April 30 and later testimony in which he offered an "unconditional assertion" that he did not ask Bank of America CEO Ken Lewis to withhold information regarding Merrill.

"The Federal Reserve acted with the highest integrity throughout its discussions with Bank of America," Bernanke wrote to the Ohio Democrat, who chairs a subcommittee on the Oversight panel.

The Democrat who heads the committee, Edolphus Towns of New York, has called Bernanke to testify on Thursday. "I am not going to prejudge these issues. We are not even close to finishing the Bank of America-Merrill Lynch investigation at this point," Towns said in a statement.

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Healthcare industry spending $1.4 million - a day - on lobbyists

The healthcare industry is spending upwards of $1.4 million each day on average to lobby members of Congress on health care legislation, a report issued by Common Cause this week reveals.

Industry spending has nearly doubled since 2000. Healthcare interests contributed $94 million to Congress members during the 2008 election cycle alone — up from $40 million in 2000.

Common Cause’s report has received almost no treatment in the press — with a single article in Bloomberg News and one in the National Journal.

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Palestinian violence overstated, Jewish violence understated

Time to Change the Story
By Ira Chernus

The Israel Project hired pollster Stanley Greenberg to test American opinion on the Middle East conflict -- and got a big surprise. In September 2008, 69% of Americans called themselves pro-Israel. Now, it's only 49%. In September, the same 69% wanted the U.S. to side with Israel; now, only 44%.

How to explain this dramatic shift? Greenberg himself suggested the answer years ago when he pointed out that, in politics, "a narrative is the key to everything." Last year the old narrative about the Middle East conflict was still dominant: Israel is an innocent victim, doing only what it must do to defend itself against the Palestinians. Today, that narrative is beginning to lose its grip on Americans.

Well, to be more precise, the first part of the old narrative is eroding. Nearly half the American public seems unsure that Israel is still the good guy in the Middle East showdown. But the popular image of the Palestinians as the violent bad guy is apparently as potent as ever. The number of Americans who say they support Palestine remains unchanged from last September, a mere 7%. And only 5% want the U.S. government to take such a position.

Those numbers reflect the narrative that President Obama recited in Cairo on June 4th. He chided the Israelis for a few things they are doing wrong -- like expanding settlements and blockading Gaza. To the other side, though, his message was far blunter: "Palestinians must abandon violence." Of Israeli violence he said not a word.

The president's speech implicitly sanctioned the most up-to-date tale that dominates the American mass media and public opinion today: The Israelis ought to be reined in a bit, but it's hard to criticize them too much because, hey, what would you do if you had suicide bombers and rockets coming at you all the time?

That view is a political winner here. In the latest Pew poll, 62% of Americans say Obama is striking the right balance between Israel and Palestine; of those who disagree, three-quarters want to see him tougher on the Palestinians, not the Israelis. A Rasmussen poll finds even stronger support for a pro-Israel tilt.

There are, however, two things wrong with his narrative. First, though it's somewhat less one-sided than the story that prevailed during the George W. Bush years, it is far from impartial, which means the U.S. still cannot act as an even-handed broker for peace in the region. Since no one else is available to play that role, it's hard to see how, under the present circumstances, any version of a peace process can move forward.

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Top 5 most sinister corporate logos

Big corporations pay millions in public relations to make customers associate their brand with a warm and fuzzy feeling. It is imperative that the soulless and inherently greedy nature of the corporation be hidden behind a family-friendly facade. But some companies just don’t give a hoot. They hate you, your family and especially your cat and they don’t care if you know it. They even display their evilness right on their logo.

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Dollar slides after China calls for ‘super-sovereign’ currency

The dollar dropped against all of its most-traded counterparts after China repeated its call for a “super-sovereign” currency.

The greenback headed for its biggest weekly loss against the euro in a month after the People’s Bank of China said the International Monetary Fund should manage part of members’ foreign-exchange reserves. China is the biggest foreign holder of U.S. Treasuries, with $763.5 billion in April.

“The concern of reserve diversification is always lurking in the background,” said Martin McMahon, a foreign-exchange analyst at Credit Suisse Group AG in Zurich.

The dollar weakened 0.8 percent to $1.4101 per euro at 8:34 a.m. in New York, from $1.3988 yesterday, extending its loss this week to 1.1 percent. The dollar will decline to a level between $1.50 and $1.60 euro in the third quarter, McMahon said. The yen weakened 0.3 percent to 134.59 per euro from 134.22. The U.S. currency fell 0.5 percent to 95.44 yen from 95.95.

The Dollar Index, which the ICE uses to track the greenback against the currencies of six leading trading partners, fell 0.8 percent to below 80.

“To prevent the deficiencies in the main reserve currency, there’s a need to create a new currency that’s delinked from the economies of the issuers,” the People’s Bank of China said in a review of the economy in 2008 released today.

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