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Author: Matthew G. Saroff
And A Maryland Democrat Joins the Ranks of the Morally Repugnant
And here he is tweeting his support a month agoWhen Maryland Delegate Sam Aora (D-Silver Spring) ran for office, he said that he supported gay marriage.
He’s one of the cosponsors for the bill that provides for recognition of Gay marriage in Maryland.
Well, now that it’s passed the state Senate, and looks like it is going to pass , he says that he is going to vote against it.
This isn’t just about a politician lying. This is about a politician making the issue the core of his campaign, and then betraying the people who supported him because of it.
It was at the core of his campaign.
He campaigned on in, and raised money on it.
Unsurprisingly, there is now a drum beat of people who are asking for their campaign contributions back, particularly since it looks like his vote will kill the bill.
This guy might be the biggest slime ball in Maryland, and that says a lot!
Little Davey, Don’t You Know That This Was a Political Ploy? Why Do You Hate America?
Fresh on the heels of claiming that Afghan parents burn their own children for crall political purposes, little Davey Petraeus is apologizing for a helicopter strike that killed 9 children who were collecting wood:
A NATO airstrike that Afghan officials said Wednesday killed nine children collecting firewood in eastern Afghanistan the day before became the latest irritant in the tense relationship between President Hamid Karzai and the international force in the country.
Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top NATO commander here, issued an apology for an error that military officials attributed to faulty communication as an air weapons team responded to an attack on a NATO base Tuesday in Konar province.
“We are deeply sorry for this tragedy and apologize to the members of the Afghan government, the people of Afghanistan and most importantly, the surviving family members of those killed by our actions,” Petraeus said in an unusually contrite written statement. “These deaths should have never happened and I will personally apologize to President Karzai.”
The strike increased the already high tension between Karzai and NATO commanders, who came under scrutiny late last month because of another case in which Afghan officials alleged that dozens of civilians were killed in a U.S. military operation, also in Konar province.
Why does he hate America?
Doesn’t he know that whenever we blow up innocent civilians, it’s because they were trying to get killed, because it helps the Taliban?
“Unusually contrite” my ass.
I’m not sure why he isn’t following his usual pattern, lie, release phony facts, and a few weeks later issue a correction on the weekend, but somehow or other the truth got out despite his best efforts.
This is not typical behavior for him.
Senator Daniel Akaka (D-HI) to Retire
It could be that he figures that, at age 88, he won’t finish his next term, but considering the mathematical realities of the 2102 Senate races, my guess is that he realizes that the Dems lose the Senate in 2012, and he does not want to be in the minority Again.
Thankfully, Alaska is a safe seat though.
Could Wisconsin Democrats Please Send Some Spare Backbone to Washington, DC?
After a couple of weeks of a growing grassroots effort to initiate recall campaigns against 8 Republican state Senators, the Wisconsin Democratic party has officially joined the effort:
The Wisconsin Democratic Party has decided to throw its weight behind a nascent grassroots drive to recall a number of GOP state senators, a move that will considerably increase the pressure on them to break with Governor Scott Walker, the Dem party chair confirms to me.
“The proposals and the policies that Republicans are pushing right now are not what they campaigned on, and they’re extreme,” the party chair, Mike Tate, said in an interview. “Something needs to be done about it now. We’re happy to stand with citizens who are filling papers to recall these senators.”
Previously, Wisconsin Dems had not publicly supported talk about recalling GOP Senators, in hopes of privately reaching a negotiated solution to the crisis. The Wisconsin Democratic Party’s decision to support the recall drives represents a significant ratcheting up of hostilities and in essence signals that all bets are off.
Eight Republican Senators are eligible to be recalled right now, [the state Senate has staggered terms, and you cannot initiate a recall in the first year of a term] and various groups around Wisconsin are beginning to file papers to make it happen. Tate told me that the party would throw its organization behind such efforts.
You know, I think that when the base is motivated, this might be a better idea than what they do in DC, which is to try to defang motivated Democrats, and call them names like “Professional Left.”
Then again, what do I know. I don’t have experience engineering the biggest electoral reversal for Democrats in history with the realities of politics.
Maybe deliberately demoralizing the party faithful actually works.
And maybe I’m Charlie Sheen.
Now They are Charging Bradley Manning With a Capital Crime
They have added, giving aid to the enemy, which carries the death penalty to the list of charges against the soldier accused of leaking diplomatic cables, and probably the “collateral murder” video, to Wikileaks.
What is going on here, with his pre-trial detention, with 23 hour a day solitary confinement, which is best described as torture, and now the threat of execution, is that they are clearly attempting to coerce perjured testimony, so that they can gin up some charges to engage in a political prosecution of Julian Assange.
Yet another truly repulsive embrace of Bushes Stalinesque embrace of the unlimited national security apparatus by Barack Obama and His Evil Minions™.
There’s his campaign slogan for 2012: Marginally less morally repugnant than whoever he is running against.
Anonymous Gets Scalp of HBGary Fedral CEO
Following revelations by Anonymous that HBGary Federal was developing a plan of Nixonian dirty tricks, with false identities, forged documents, and other disinformation, the CEO of HBGary Federal has been fired resigned:
Aaron Barr’s departure as CEO of HBGary Federal represented the latest twist for the company and its Sacramento affiliate, HBGary Inc. A spokeswoman for the Sacramento company confirmed the resignation.
According to numerous reports, Barr’s company, which is based in Colorado and Washington, D.C., proposed conducting a disinformation campaign against critics of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The plan was presented to the chamber’s law firm, but the chamber says it wasn’t aware of it.
The plan was aborted after the hacker group Anonymous stole tens of thousands of e-mails from both HBGary and HBGary Federal – and posted many of the messages on the Web.
And now Democratic members of Congress are calling for an investigation of these activities.
Of course, there won’t be an investigation in the House. The Republicans are busy looking for a blue dress.
Economics Update
The Fed’s Beige Book is out, and it is the same old, same old, a slow recovery that will take years before we are back to what should be normal:
The Federal Reserve said the labor market improved throughout the country early this year, driven by rising retail sales and “solid growth” in manufacturing.
“Labor market conditions continued to strengthen modestly, with all Districts reporting some degree of improvement,” the Fed said today in its Beige Book report, an anecdotal account of the economy released two weeks before meetings of the Federal Open Market Committee. Its last survey, released Jan. 12, said the job market was “firming somewhat.”
Overall, the economy “continued to expand at a modest to moderate pace,” the central bank said in Washington. Eleven of the Fed’s 12 regional banks, including San Francisco and Philadelphia, described their regions as expanding, improving or experiencing moderate growth. Only Chicago reported growth “at a pace not quite as strong” as before.
This translates to, “Well, stocks are up, but this is not really a recovery.”
I am uncertain just how much this fragile and slow recovery might be harmed by the recent spike in oil prices.
We also have conflicting job news, with Challenger, Gray, and Christmas saying that large planned layoffs are up, largely on the loss of jobs at state and local government level, but ADP is forecasting fairly strong private sector job growth.
Signs of the Apocalypse
Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies! Rivers and seas boiling!Forty years of darkness! Earthquakes, volcanoes…
The dead rising from the grave!
Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together… mass hysteria!
The man who pursued William Jefferson Clinton’s penis from Arkansas to the District of Columbia, Richard Mellon Scaife, has lambasted Republicans on their attempts to completely defund family planning:
The Republican-led U.S. House of Representatives — urged on by conservatives opposed to abortion — has voted to defund Planned Parenthood. On this issue, Republicans and conservatives are dead wrong.
My grandmother was a friend and a supporter of Margaret Sanger, one of America’s earliest, most effective advocates of birth control.
I met Sanger several times before her death in 1966 and was impressed by her intellect and her commitment to many issues, not the least of which was enabling every woman to be “the absolute mistress of her own body,” as she put it.
I didn’t agree with everything the formidable Mrs. Sanger espoused. Yet I respected her dedication to making health-care and birth-control services available to all Americans, especially to those with low incomes, no insurance and no other recourse to medical services.
When you have gotten too combative for rabid right wing Pit Bull for Dick Scaife, you have seriously gone off the rails.
OK, This is F%$#ing Lame
In response to the prank call that pwn36 (owned) Wisconsin governor Scott Walker, a law has been proposed in Wisconsin to criminalize prank calls.
Un dirty-word believable.
AT&T Has No Right to Privacy
In a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court decided that corporations do not have a right to personal privacy under the Freedom of Information Act statute.
It was not even close. It was unanimous, and there wasn’t even a separate concurring opinion.
The facts are clear: AT&T cheated the government when it was wiring up schools and libraries, got caught, and paid a fine.
What happened next was that its competitors made FOIA requests to find out exactly what they did, and AT&T claimed that this would constitute an unwarranted intrusion of the corporation’s personal privacy which might “embarrass” it, which some some federal appellate judge who did too much LDS in the 60s actually bought that crap.
In reviewing the opinion, written by John Roberts (see here)what is exceedinbly clear is that John Roberts thought that this was an opportunity to sound “arch” or “witty”:
We disagree. Adjectives typically reflect the meaning of corresponding nouns, but not always. Sometimes they acquire distinct meanings of their own. The noun “crab” refers variously to a crustacean and a type of apple, while the related adjective “crabbed” can refer to handwriting that is “difficult to read,” Webster’s Third New International Dictionary 527 (2002); “corny” can mean “using familiar and stereotyped formulas believed to appeal to the unsophisticated,” id., at 509, which has little to do with “corn,” id., at 507 (“the seeds of any of the cereal grasses used for food”); and while “crank” is “a part of an axis bent at right angles,” “cranky” can mean “given to fretful fussiness,” id., at 530.
Maybe it’s just me, but he sounds neither “arch” nor “witty”, but rather like an 8th grade student who thinks that he is far more clever than he actually is.
It was a good decision, but Roberts’ opinion is just plain lame.
This is Not Going to End Well
So, the Republicans got a 2 week extension on the debt ceiling, just long enough to make them sound reasonable, and short enough that they can try to destroy the economy for the 2012 elections with stupid budget cuts.
It’s like the Democrats are playing to lose.
If Obama had any guts, he would make sure that it was Republican oxen were gored by a shutdown, canceling things like the farm aid, etc., but since he doesn’t, you can be sure that the cuts when a shutdown occurs, and it is when, not if, will fall disproportionately on the poor and the Democratic base.
They are Just so F%$#ing Classy
In an effort to remove demonstrator from the Wisconsin capitol, Scott Walker had the windows welded shut to prevent people passing food in.
In related news, a district judge has issued an injunction against Scott Walker’s order to shut the capitol until a full hearing can be held.
Is it just me, or does dealing with Republicans remind one of the O. Henry story, The Ransom of Red Chief?
Maybe Your Mom Was a Sh%$ty Teacher…
Jon Stewart on how f%$#ing absurd the assault on teachers is:
Quote of The Day
From the list 25 Guys to Avoid on Wall Street:
Avoid the guy who offers his clients ‘a very special opportunity’ to invest in anything. He has a problem with cocaine.
I will note the parallel between this guy and just about every ‘very special episode’ of a TV series with young characters.
They both involve drug abuse.
End the War, Bitch
The official hed is that the Democratic National Committee has passed a resolution calling for an accelerate withdrawal from Afghanistan, but when you consider the fact that the sitting president, who has doubled down on escalation, and soft pedaled any exodus for both Iraq and Afghanistan, reclassifying soldiers there as “non-combat” and directing a torrent of private military contractors (mercenaries) into both nations, it is pretty clear that this was a deliberate challenge to Barack Obama.
Kathleen Parker Quits Parker Spitzer on CNN
Well, now that she is leaving, perhaps I can check out the successor show without the right wing idoocy for “balance”:
Kathleen Parker has been dropped from “Parker Spitzer,” and the show is being replaced by a new show called “In The Arena,” the network announced Friday.
In a memo to staff, CNN President Ken Jautz said that “In The Arena” would be an “ensemble” show, with “several newsmakers, guests and contributors joining Eliot Spitzer each night.” Among the regulars will be former Fox News anchor E.D. Hill and National Review writer Will Cain.
(emphasis mine)
<Facepalm>
Then again, it maybe not.
The interesting thing here is that when Kathleen Parker took a temporary leave for medical reasons, the show’s ratings doubled.
Where Spitzer has credibility is his experience in dealing with Wall Street lawbreaking, and by larding the show up with “balance”, it makes it worse TV.
I’ll probably check it out at some point, if just because I can’t stand Lawrence O’Donnell, who is opposite to their time slot.
Is there a site online where I can see CNN streaming?
Normally, I Don’t Follow the Oscars
Good question
And the trailer
But Charles Ferguson, the director of the documentary The Inside Job, upon accepting his award for best documentary, raised an obvious point:
Forgive me, I must start by pointing out that three years after our horrific financial crisis caused by financial fraud, not a single financial executive has gone to jail, and that’s wrong.
It’s a good question, and, considering the timing of the crisis, it really started in September 2008, and there was no way that anything but damage control could be done over the next few months, the answer has to be, “Because Barack Obama does not want a single financial executive to go to jail.”
There are some issues that were mismanaged by the Bush administration, they had no intention to reign in excessive bonuses, for example, but the only way that major figures, such as the recent decision to no-bill Angelo Mozillo, is if there was a conscious decision not to apply to the rule of law at the highest level.
This is very similar to, and as least as damaging in the long term as, his conscious to allow the worst excesses of torture, perjury, and civil rights violations for Bush and His Evil Minions.™
This is corrosive to society.
The Irish Elections, and What it All Means…
Former Prime Minister, and former Fianna Fail head, Brian Cowen, in an unintentionally apt photographSo, Fianna Fail, having been in government for 60 of the past 79 years, has been tossed out by a resounding margin.
They fell 59 seats to 18 in Parliament, and the Green party, its coalition partner, lost all of its seats, while Fine Gael picked up 19 seats to 70, the Labour Party picked up 16 seats to 36, Sinn Fein(!) picked up 9 to get 13, the United Left Alliance (a coalition of various socialist parties) picked up 5 seats, and the new “New Vision” Party picked up 1 seat.
This is obviously a crushing defeat for Fianna Fail, and for the bank coddling policies, where the indemnified not just the depositors, but the banks’ bond holders, thereby committing the Irish taxpayers to what can only be called “debt slavery”.
What is interesting here is that Fine Gael is actually a further right party than Fianna Fail, and what the voters were really calling for were basically three policies:
- F%$# the Irish banks.
- F%$# the foreign banks that hold Irish debt.
- F%$# the banks.
Whether this electoral landslide has any long term effects has to do with whether the people who voted for real change actually see it.
While there is both a moral and treaty obligation to make the account holders whole (up to something around €20,000), the idea that the Irish are impoverishing themselves in order to prop up foreign bond holders, largely British and German, who received higher returns than they would have at home because of the higher risk, banks is clearly something that the average Irishman finds unacceptable.
A lot of people are talking about how this is a seismic reshaping of the Irish body politic, but I doubt it.
My guess is that Fianna Fail will be back in the majority in the next election, because now that the opposition has control of government, we will see half measures, and coddling of both the Irish banks and their foreign creditors, which will result in a tsunami in the other direction in the next elections.
As has been noted, a, “deeply indebted economy with just 1.8 million people at work cannot underwrite private banking liabilities of €200bn.”
If Fine Gael, (and one their likely coalition partner Labour) do not understand this, and do not force haircuts on the bond holders through threat of default (which has the added benefit of transferring the pain to the feckless Angela Merkel ), the voters will turn on them.
For a recent political case study on the wages of timidity in this sort of a crisis, one need only look to the US, and the Democratic Party under the leadership of one Barack H. Obama.
It’s Bank Failure Friday!!!! (on Saturday)
It’s a fairly slow week, with only one bank, and one credit union
And here they are, ordered, and numbered for the year so far.
- Valley Community Bank, St. Charles, IL
And here are the credit union closings:
- NYC OTB Federal Credit Union, New York, NY
I suppose that the OTB credit union closing was inevitable, as New York’s OTB, state run Off Track Betting, was shut down recently because they could not make a profit.
So, here is the graph pr0n with last years numbers for comparison (FDIC only):
And since it’s early in the year, here is a detail of the first few weeks: