Southpark is on the case:
Background, in case you live under a rock.
Category: Evil
Remind Me, Once Again
As I have said many times, if you live by one rule, it should be never piss off Jon Stewart.
Here he takes on Liz Cheney:
Ms. Cheney is pathetic really: She has no accomplishments of her own, and she knows that if her Daddy gets close to anything even vaguely resembling a fair and full accounting, the gravy train which gets her gigs of Fox News ends.
Ms. Cheney, you are an even more pathetic excuse for a human being than you father is; at least he did something himself to be where he is, while you, much like your fellow nepotism affirmative action baby and Keep America Safe stalwart William Kristol, have done nothing but make currency of your family name.
This is a Change………
Last week, I wrote about California State Senator Roy Ashburn, who was caught driving drunk as he left a gay bar.
Well, in what is a refreshing change for Republicans,* he has admitted that he is gay:
“I’m gay,” State Senator Roy Ashburn told a radio host from his central California district in an interview this morning. “Those are the words that have been so difficult for me for so long.”
Ashburn, a divorced father of four, said that his many votes against gay rights were efforts to represent the conservative views of his constituents.
This is the most evil bit of nastiness that I’ve heard in a while.
We all harbor our own prejudices, and the best that one can hope for is to recognize them for what they are, understand that they are wrong, and not act on them.
While I understand how people can hate for irrational reasons, it’s worse to hate for a rational reason.
This man did not have an irrational hatred and fear of gays, but he led anti-gay rallies.
He did so for the most prosaic of reasons: He wanted to hold elected office.
*But not outed Democrats, see McGreevy, James.
Not Enough Bullets: AIG Again
After bankrupting AIG, and nearly taking the world financial system, employees at AIG’s Financial Products division whined about the possibility that they would not get their lucrative bonuses for nearly destroying civilization:
During the national furor that erupted last year after American International Group paid more than $165 million in bonuses, the voices of those vilified for receiving the payments remained silent, at least in public.
But behind closed doors, employees at AIG’s Financial Products division — the very unit whose trading had hastened the insurance giant’s collapse — were defiant, saying they were merely getting what they were due, recoiling at public accusations that they were behind their capitalizing on the company’s massive taxpayer bailout.
“I will stand behind every action I have taken in this company from Day One,” one employee said, according to a newly obtained transcript of a conference call the division’s head held last March with some of his staff.
But it turns out that, they are getting obscene amounts money now:
Yet they did see that money, at least most of it. Last month, under a deal in which employees agreed to take a cut in their upcoming retention bonuses in return for an accelerated payment, AIG paid out about $100 million to employees at the firm. AIG is scheduled to pay the last of the bonuses this month.
Seriously, these arrested development, self absorbed frat boys will never do the right thing, and they should never, ever be allowed near other people’s money ever again.
I Guess That He Picked Up His Understated Taste in America’s Heartland
Click for full size
Jeebus, it couldn’t be any tackier if you added velvet Elvises
Because, Rush Limbaugh’s former New York City apartment is truly a study of prudence and thrift.
And such a steal, at only $13.95 million dollars.
Karl Rove and Jeff Gannon in DC Gay Marriage Love Tryst?
Ummm, no, he probably didn’t, but if Karl Rove were to be tagged with this rumor, it would very much be just desserts, since he started false whispering campaigns like:
- Alleging that John McCain fathered a black daughter.
- That former Texas Governor Ann Richards was a lesbian.
- That a judge was a pedophile.
So, by the standards of Karl Rove, this is a fair question.
It’s not true, as Jon Ponder notes in his post, “Did Karl Rove Leave His Wife For Jeff Gannon?“
Still, the story does contain “truthiness,” as Stephen Colbert would say.
On Jim Bunning and His Filibuster
Since I’m starting a new job, I dodge Bunning’s filibuster of extended unemployment benefits.
Jim bunning, go Cheney yourself.
Also, I am thinking about a campaign to remove him from the baseball hall of fame.
The moral of this story: Republicans are mean; Democrats are patsies.
Taylor Marsh’s take on the latest filibuster kerfluffle, where Jim Bunning told Democrats, “Tough sh%$,” when they confronted him about blocking the emergency unemployment extension:
In a colloquy with Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Sen. Jeff Merkley, a freshman Democrat from Oregon, was pleading for Bunning to drop his objection, when the Kentucky Republican got fed up.
“Tough s—t,” Bunning said as he was seated in the back row, overheard by the floor staff and others in attendance.
Like I said before, prima donnas and drama queens, and the prima donnas and drama queens always win in the Senate.
Sally Quinn Demoted to Dirty F%$#ing Blogger
She’s had a regular column, “The Party,” which was basically about throwing parties, in the print edition of the WaPo, but it’s going online only, or, as Gawker so evocatively states it, “Sally Quinn Relegated to WaPo Ghetto.”
Basically, she devoted an entire article to the horror that is a scheduling conflict between two weddings, and it crossed line between accommodating whatever affection that Posties might have her husband, Ex Editor-in-Chief Ben Bradley, and projectile vomit risking revulsion, so she’s gone, hopefully for good. (No link to Sally, you can get the link at the first link, look for, “enormous turd,” but I don’t link to Sally Quinn)
In any case, one wag had fun with it in an online chat with a Wapo columnist:
Burke, Va.: I’m so confused!
Our ex-boss’ wife (HIS third wife) still writes for the company newsletter. Last week, she wrote a column about how her son’s wedding is on the same day as her husband’s granddaughter’s wedding, on opposite coasts, and nobody can figure out why we’re supposed to care. I guess everybody likes the old man so much that everybody’s afraid to tell his wife that her column is absurd and makes the company newsletter look stupid.
Any suggestions?
Lily Garcia: It sounds like the column, although inappropriate, is basically harmless. You could try suggesting topics that you would like to see covered in the newsletter, but you should stop short of proposing that the ex-boss’ wife be excluded.
In any case, this means that the level of discourse in Washington, DC has improved by a small amount.
Do Not Ski Utah
For that matter, don’t buy anything from an operation in the state.
The state lege has just passed a bill which provides criminal penalties for miscarriages:
A bill passed by the Utah House and Senate this week and waiting for the governor’s signature, will make it a crime for a woman to have a miscarriage, and make induced abortion a crime in some instances.
…………
The bill passed by legislators amends Utah’s criminal statute to allow the state to charge a woman with criminal homicide for inducing a miscarriage or obtaining an illegal abortion. The basis for the law was a recent case in which a 17-year-old girl, who was seven months pregnant, paid a man $150 to beat her in an attempt to cause a miscarriage. Although the girl gave birth to a baby later given up for adoption, she was initially charged with attempted murder. However the charges were dropped because, at the time, under Utah state law a woman could not be prosecuted for attempting to arrange an abortion, lawful or unlawful.
The bill passed by the Utah legislature would change that. While the bill does not affect legally obtained abortions, it criminalizes any actions taken by women to induce a miscarriage or abortion outside of a doctor’s care, with penalties including up to life in prison.
“What is really radical and different about this statute is that all of the other states’ feticide laws are directed to third party attackers,” Paltrow explained. “[Other states’ feticide laws] were passed in response to a pregnant woman who has been beaten up by a husband or boyfriend. Utah’s law is directed to the woman herself and that’s what makes it different and dangerous.”
In addition to criminalizing an intentional attempt to induce a miscarriage or abortion, the bill also creates a standard that could make women legally responsible for miscarriages caused by “reckless” behavior.
Using the legal standard of “reckless behavior” all a district attorney needs to show is that a woman behaved in a manner that is thought to cause miscarriage, even if she didn’t intend to lose the pregnancy. Drink too much alcohol and have a miscarriage? Under the new law such actions could be cause for prosecution.
If the politicians of Utah hate women this much, maybe they should stop breeding.
Better yet, maybe their partners should stop having sex with them, see Lysistrata.
Geithner Knifes Volker Rule
Surprise, Geithner and his Treasury Department is giving the green light for Congress to gut the Volker rule, and allow federally insured institutions to gamble with our money.
Well, he never like Volker anyway:
The Obama administration lowered expectations Tuesday for the “Volcker rule” to curb risky trading by banks, emphasizing “limits” rather than an outright ban, as Congress shied from the original proposal.
The Treasury Department said in a statement that it supports “mandatory limits” on banks’ proprietary trading, in which they trade for their own accounts. The administration last month had called for an outright ban on such trading.
Seriously, the combination or regulatory capture and cowardice by the Obama administration is beginning to get to me.
Not Enough Bullets
The numbers are in, and Wall Street bonuses rose 17% in 2009.
The reason that they did not fold like overcooked broccoli in 2009 is because the Congress, the Treasury Department, and the Federal Reserve were shoveling money into them at a ferocious pace, but still they paid themselves bigger bonuses.
Someone Needs to Go to Jail for a Very Long Time
Photo H/t boing boingAnd I don’t mean a sysop.
The Lower Merion School District has issued laptops to its high school students, and someone has been activating the webcams to spy on children.
This came to a head, when Harriton High School Assistant Principal Lindy Matsko confronted sophomore Blake Robbins about his suspicious consumption of Mike & Ike candies, they look like pills.
What’s more that Mr. Robbins experience appears not to be unique:
If the allegations of spying prove to be true, Blake may not be the only victim. Other students claim they’ve seen their webcam go live while off school grounds and worry they’ve been spied on too.
“Occasionally a green light would go on, on your computer which would kind of give you the feeling that somebody’s watching you,” Harriton High School student Drew Scheier told NBC Philadelphia Thursday.
Subpoenas have been issued by the US Attorney, and the FBI is investigating the matter as a potential criminal act.
If anyone activated those cameras, there was a possibility that the children who had them might have been in front of the camera, and that they might have been a state of undress, which makes one of the charges something along the lines of soliciting child pr0n.
It doesn’t matter whether it was a pedophile looking for young bodies, or someone looking for funny pix for the office Christmas party, anyone involved in this, and anyone who knew of this and did not go to police, should go to jail.
More on Bybee and Yoo, and the Lessons Learned Therein
Courtesy of Chris Floyd:
“Children, the law is nothing but a rag smeared with blood and sh%$.
“It is only for suckers, rubes and losers.
“Claw your way to the top — by any means necessary — and the law can never touch you.
“This is the American way.”
This is the message of Barack Obama and His Evil Minions™ determination not to prosecute, nor review in the smallest way by the bar association, the contemptible actions of the worst of the wrong doers amongst Bush and His Evil Minions™.
With the CPAC* Conference Going On
The first rule of Investment Banking Club is,
you do not talk about Investment Banking Club.
You generally know where to look for selfishness and an immature sense of entitlement, but Moe Tkacik finds something that makes the folks at CPAC looking like Mahatma Ghandi.
Rather unsurprisingly, she finds it on wall street, where the bankers are, “As mad as hell,” about all the nasty things that people say about them ……… All while sucking down 7 figure salaries and bonuses.
You see, the bankers had a get together, and they invited her:
Still, I had heard of no plan for any sort of public up-close-and-personal plutocrat-on-plutocrat spectacle to give voice to the inchoate counterrevolution, no Millionaire’s March offering group catharsis to the angry wealthy white. But on Tuesday, Jan. 26, I received a mass e-mail from Schwartz Communications with the subject: “Wall Street Strikes Back at White House.”
It was held the trading floor of John Thomas† Financial, and (yet again) it defies belief, but suffice it to say that there was a Republican candidate for the US Senate, the bald guy is the head of the firm, Anastasios (Thomas) Belesis, who is a piece of work all on his own:
Belesis’s FINRA profile is similarly alarming. Investors have accused him of churning, fraud, excessive trading, breach of contract and other violations. Regulators have ordered him to repay investors more than a million dollars.
So, he’s mad as hell, and he’s not going to take it any more.
Of course, in a just world, he would be banned from the securities industry for life.
This story continues with epic tails of sexual harassment and the disposal whipped cream.
Just go read it.
*Conservative Political Action Comittee
†Yes, “John Thomas” is a bit of slang in Britain for a portion of the male anatomy, and it’s very apt here, and yes, there is a real investment bank by that name.
Big Surprise, Old Dominion Governor Rolls Back Protections for Gay Workers
Yes, now that Bob McDonnell is now Virginia governor, he repealed the protections instituted by his predecessor for gay and lesbian state workers:
McDonnell (R) on Feb. 5 signed an executive order that prohibits discrimination “on the basis of race, sex, color, national origin, religion, age, political affiliation, or against otherwise qualified persons with disabilities,” as well as veterans.
It rescinds the order that Gov. Tim Kaine signed Jan. 14, 2006 as one of his first actions. After promising a “fair and inclusive” administration in his inaugural address, Kaine (D) added veterans to the non-discrimination policy – and sexual orientation.
It’s because they need someone to hate, or they would have nothing to campaign on.
Can We Please Start Arresting Bankers?
Seriously, the good folks at Citi are planning to start selling, “derivatives intended to pay out in the event of a financial crisis.”
That’s right, they are creating instruments that will allow people to bet against our financial system, and win if they, or their friends take it down:
Credit specialists at Citi are considering launching the first derivatives intended to pay out in the event of a financial crisis. The firm has drawn up plans for a tradable liquidity index, known as the CLX, on which products could be structured that allow buyers to hedge a spike in funding costs.
(emphasis mine)
Seriously, if our forfathers understood the need to prevent this sort of casino gambling masquerading as insurance when the parliament passed the Marine Insurance Act of 1746, no that’s not an error, taking out insurance on something in which you have no interest in the continued existence of the insured property has been illegal for 264 years, because otherwise, people do things like take out insurance in their neighbor’s house, and then burn it down.
These people are terrorists under the (admittedly lax) standards of the PATRIOT act and its successors, and they should be pursued as such, with all the jurisprudence that Dick Cheney wants for suspected al Qaeda members.
H/t Felix Salmon, who crystallizes the basic point rather clearly:
We learned in the crash of 1987 [and 2001, and 2008, me] that when financial markets start selling products which insure a portfolio against catastrophic loss, the very existence of those products can destabilize the market and make it more prone to crashing. And, of course, we learned that such insurance has a tendency not to get paid out on exactly when it’s most needed. But heaven forfend that the market should ever learn from its mistakes.
We need hand cuffs for dishonest and delusional bankers today, or we’ll need pitchforks, torches, tar and feathers for all bankers tomorrow.
Dick Cheney Just Confessed on National Television
As much as it pains me to say, who watches the Sunday gasbags so I don’t have to, is completely correct when he says that Dick Cheney’s interview on ABC’s This Week is an admission that he committed war crimes:
CHENEY: I was a big supporter of waterboarding. [. . .]
KARL: And you opposed the administration’s actions of doing away with waterboarding?
CHENEY: Yes.
This is an admission of guilt under the conspiracy laws as they currently stand, though, President “Hopey Changey” and his Attorney General, Eric “Hold of on Prosecutions” won’t do anything about it, because ………… Hell, I don’t know why, and it pisses me off.
I would note that inaction not does make Holder, and Obama accessories in crimes against humanity.
There is an affirmative requirement to investigate and prosecute under the treaties.
Bowing Out Like a Punk
Yeah, like this will go over with Indiana voters
Evan Bayh will not stand for reelection.*
Yes, unlike Chris Dodd, who announced well in advance, and was frank about the reason, that he thought that he would lose, Evan Bayh’s announcement comes as a complete surprise to to everyone, with 1 day left to the primary filing deadline, and the only person close to having the signatures necessary being a protest candate, Tamyra d’Ippolito, a café owner in Bloomington.
If she gets the necessary signatures, 500 signatures in each Congressional district, it means that if any Democrat wants to run against her, they will have to do so as a write in candidate in the May primary.
If she gets the signatures, expect the Dem establishment to challenge every signature.
If she doesn’t get the signatures, then the Indiana Democrat Party appoints a nominee, with the likely suspects being, “Dem Reps Brad Ellsworth and Baron Hill, and Evansville mayor Jonathan Weinzapfel.”
I’m hoping for the mayor, because I don’t care about the municipal government of Evansville, but I do care about the composition of the United States House of Representatives, and both Ellsworth and Hill are Blue Dogs.
Mother Jones nailed it when they said, “Evan Bayh quits in a huff“, because the manner of his withdrawal makes it clear that he is doing this in a way most calculated to cause damage to the Democratic Party, either by leaving them without a viable candidate for the Senate, or by pulling in a candidate from one of the Democratic Congressmen, which leaves that seat open.
On the other hand, most of the potential big name Republican candidates have already elected not to run, which leaves former Senator Dan Coats, who, as Charles Lemos shows, moved out of the state, and has to rent a house to run. (See video)
Still I do not think that this is an attempt to jam up the Republicans, he did it out of pique.
Why else would he have waited until after the news was public to tell Harry Reid?
I agree with Mark Ambinder who nails it in a tweet, either 100 characters, or 81 if you don’t count spaces:
Why Bayh? He wanted to be POTUS and came to hate the Senate and liberal activists. He wanted no mas.
He not only voted for the Iraq invasion, he was a f%$#ing cosponsor for the bill, which means that he will never be president, and now he is pouting.
Joe Lieberman writ small.
*Like Evan Bayh ever stood for anything, except perhaps for the ambition of Evan Bayh.
We Are All Max Bialystock*
Have you heard the latest derivative?
Cantor-Fitzgerald, showing evidence that they are still insane with grief after having 2/3 of their employees on 911, have come up with a twist to their new and innovative financial product, the Hollywood Stock Exchange, a game where people can “bet” funny on the success and failure of movies.
The twist, they are asking for regulatory approval to allow people to bet real money.
If any of you have seen The Producers, then you understand the possibilities:
Here’s how it would work. Hollywood studios, actors, directors, investment banks, hedge funds, and anyone else would be able to buy and sell contracts based on the value of all ticket sales in the first four weeks of a movie’s release. According to Cantor Fitzgerald’s plans, the contracts would each be worth one-millionth of a given movie’s gross sales during that four-week period. Let’s say that you thought Avatar would pull in $500 million during its first four weeks. So, you buy 100 futures contracts at $490, figuring that when Avatar made $500 million you’d be up $1,000. Unfortunately, as it turned out, Avatar “only” made some $430 million domestically in the first month after its release—meaning that you’d lose a cool six grand.
One problem, skeptics say, is that Hollywood insiders could have a huge advantage in such a market. People in the movie business often have far greater access to crucial information about a film’s box office prospects than ordinary investors do—such as how big the marketing budget will be or how bad the performances are. “If the industry is selling, odds are that it is a bad idea to buy,” says Dean Baker, the codirector of the Center for Economic and Policy Research.
The deeper meaning to all of this is that these folks at Cantor Fitzgerald really see an opportunity for people to use their inside information as a way to steal from the general as a legitimate financial innovation.
It’s not, it’s a fraud, and it is transparently a fraud conceived for the purpose of generating commissions.
It is an indictment of the very concept of “financial innovation” as put forward by Wall Street.
Whoever came up with this idea should be banned from working as a broker for life.
*Seriously, if you don’t understand the reference, for Pete’s sake, get out more, or go to the Wiki.