Oh My God it’s the Barney Car!
It’s the Barney car!I knew that it was wrong and evil, and I posted such, though I think that at tht time I focused more on stupid than evil.
Well, now now I have proof that it’s not just stupid, it’s Evil (beginning with a capital “e” and ending with a sputter).
Tekeli li!! Tekeli li!! Tekeli li!! Tekeli li!!
H/t Oggie at the Shortskoolbus BBS for the Photoshop.
Remember when I wrote that Richard Shelby had placed holds on every single Obama nominee because he wanted his pork?
Well, he’s backed down, a little at least:
Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) has released his controversial “holds” on more than 70 pending presidential nominations, his office said Monday night.
Note that his holds directed at anyone, or anything that might have to do with the USAF tanker RFP, remain in place though.
Former Liberian President, and mass murderer, Charles Taylor is saying that he did mining deals with Pat Robertson in exchange for his lobbying Bush and His Evil Minions™ for support:
Former Liberian president Charles Taylor, testifying in his war crimes trial in The Hague on Thursday, said that his government had awarded American televangelist Pat Robertson a gold mining concession in 1999 and that Robertson later offered to lobby the Bush administration on the government’s behalf.
The revelations came in the midst of Taylor’s U.N.-backed trial on 11 counts of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity during Sierra Leone’s 1990s civil war. Taylor is accused of directing a Sierra Leonean rebel group, the United Revolutionary Front, in a campaign aimed at securing access to the country’s diamond mines. The rebel movement stands accused of committing mass atrocities in the West African country in the late 1990s, including the mutilation of thousands of civilians.
Here’s hoping that the war crimes tribunal comes after Pat Robertson, whose association with Taylor has been common knowledge for at least a decade.
Of course, Robertson will never see the inside of a court room, because the United States won’t turn over anyone for war crimes, because we’re big enough not to play by the rules, so all that we will hear from him on this is his spokesman’s denial.
Richard Shelby is now placing holds on all Obama nominations he doesn’t think that the Obama administration is being friendly enough to Airbus/Northrop-Grumman on the tanker deal, and because they have not started constructed an FBI lab that he cut an earmark for in his district:
According to the report, Shelby is holding Obama’s nominees hostage until a pair of lucrative programs that would send billions in taxpayer dollars to his home state get back on track. The two programs Shelby wants to move forward or else:
– A $40 billion contract to build air-to-air refueling tankers. From CongressDaily: “Northrop/EADS team would build the planes in Mobile, Ala., but has threatened to pull out of the competition unless the Air Force makes changes to a draft request for proposals.” Federal Times offers more details on the tanker deal, and also confirms its connection to the hold.
– An improvised explosive device testing lab for the FBI. From CongressDaily: “[Shelby] is frustrated that the Obama administration won’t build” the center, which Shelby earmarked $45 million for in 2008. The center is due to be based “at the Army’s Redstone Arsenal.”
(emphasis mine)
Seriously, you cannot negotiate with these clowns.
Bipartisanship needs a plan B.
I would suggest stress positions, waterboarding, extreme sleep deprivation, and enforced nudity.
For a few days, the Baptist missionaries currently detained in Haiti for trafficking in children has been in the news, and I have been marinating on this.
At its most basic, I think that this was a deliberate attempt to abduct these children, though I think that money was at the root of this evil.
These people weren’t just missing paperwork, they were moving children out of the country for a purpose: to save souls.
They believed that these children would go to hell unless they were raised as, and became, Baptists, so they were breaking the law to “save” these children, some of whom were probably actually had living relatives.
So, much like William Calley, they likely, “destroyed families to save them”.
You must understand, notwithstanding all the stories about Voodoo in Haiti, the populace there is overwhelming (80%) Catholic, and these people were not rescuing people from Voodoo, but from Catholicism, which they see as not Christian, and hence a road straight to hell.
This is the evil that true believers do: Stealing children from the families.
As to the disposition, should it be determined in court that they are guilty, they should go to jail for a very long time.
Any consideration in terms of sentencing on the of the sincerity of their faith will just encourage more people with similar world views to do similarly evil things.
FWIW, I chose the Al Jazeera link just because it f%$#s with these people, here is the Google news link.
It appears that Goldman Sachs is planning to give Lloyd Blankfein a $100 million bonus this year.
We need to make the squid into some serious calamari.
Ben Bradley’s wife, otherwise known as Sally Quinn, is a fixture in Washington, and Jamison Foser has a good rundown on just what exactly she is:
You cannot caricature Sally Quinn. Don’t even try. It simply can’t be done. No matter how hard you try to exaggerate her preening self-regard and utter frivolity, she comes right along and shows herself to be worse than you could possibly imagine.
Quinn — who gained fame when The Washington Post was forced to retract her false claim that Jimmy Carter’s national security adviser unzipped his fly during an interview — makes the extraordinary claim in her January 26 column that Carter lost his re-election campaign due to his failure to attend Washington dinner parties. Not only that — according to Quinn, Ted Kennedy ran against Carter because of it:…
She is a failed newspaper reporter (see above), a failed TV reporter, I saw her on the CBS Morning News in the 1970s, and a failed novelist, and is now a serial party girl and hostess.
As was noted some years back in Salon Magazine, “She would go to the opening of an envelope.”
Basically, she married into Washington, DC royalty, in the person of former Post Editor-in-Chief Ben Bradlee, and then did her best to become the queen bee of the Washington social circle.
So, what does this mean? It means that when she writes about why things happen in Washington, DC, it’s because they don’t kiss the ass of the party crowd:
Beginning to see a pattern?
I am beginning to pine for Madame la Guillotine.
Yes, once again, another Senate “sentrist” appears to be determined to ensure that nothing good will pass the senate:
Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D[INO]-AR) will oppose Dem efforts to move health care legislation through Congress using budget reconciliation, hurting Dems’ chances for using the controversial parliamentary maneuver to pass a reform bill.
“I am opposed to and will fight against any attempts to push through changes to the Senate health insurance reform legislation by using budget reconciliation tactics that would allow the Senate to pass a package of changes to our original bill with 51 votes,” Lincoln said in a statement on Tuesday. “I have successfully fought for transparency throughout Senate deliberations on health care, and I will continue to do so.”
“I will not accept any last-minute efforts to force changes to health insurance reform issues through budget reconciliation, and neither will Arkansans. We have worked too long and too hard on this reform effort – we need to get it right,” she said.
By “We”, of xourse, she means “her”, and she does not want a process that diminishes her ability to f%$# with people’s lives, because she wants someone kissing her ass.
Matthew Yglesias is right when he calls out the Senate “centrists”, and notes that they “seem prepared to resume their customary role as the villains whose consistently egomaniacal and self-destructive behavior has badly damaged the lives of hundreds of millions of Americans.”
Rush Limbaugh just went off on Jewish Bankers.
It’s not a surprise, if you are a member of a minority group, Jews, Blacks, Hispanics, or people who served in Vietnam as opposed to dodging the draft, you can be certain that Rush Limbaugh will get to you eventually.
It looks like the fat cat Wall Street Bankers are looking at a legal challenge to Obama’s proposed bank tax:
Wall Street’s main lobbying arm has hired a top Supreme Court litigator to study a possible legal battle against a bank tax proposed by the Obama administration, on the theory that it would be unconstitutional, according to three industry officials briefed on the matter.
Ummm ……… Despite the fact that these guys destroy £7 of wealth for each dollar that they are paid, and the fact that this is intended to collect money to replace those spent under the TARP law, which required such a levy, they still believe themselves to be the masters of the universe, and they are outraged at that Obama has unveiled a modest tax on their liabilities and spoken about them with less than glowing terms.
It’s really kind of whiny, since the tax is modest, and largely geared toward forestalling more punitive measures floating around Congress.
The tax is nominally 15 basis points (0.15%) on liabilities over $50 billion, and it appears to weigh more heavily on investment banks than depositor banks, though the legal distinction was erased when the brokers all became bank holding companies. (See the FAQ from the Treasury Department)
What’s more the tax is profoundly weak tea, as the effective tax is halved, yielding a tax of 7½ basis points, which is well under the 78 basis point advantage in cost of funds that the “too big to fail banks” have over their smaller brethren.
Note also that this only covers the $117 billion or so of the TARP, but when other bailouts are considered, we are approaching $30 trillion in money handed to banks, without a thought of clawing that back.
So they are getting a sweetheart deal, and they are screaming like stuck pigs.
They do not realize how angry people are, and they won’t until people literally start burning down their houses with torches.
David Bahati, author of the Ugandan “Kill the Gays” bill, and Ugandan Ethics and Integrity Minister James Nsaba Buturo are expected to come to the United States to attend the National Prayer Breakfast.
Let’s be clear: These people are proposing genocide against gays in Uganda.
They should not be granted a visa.
If Barack Obama does not want a diplomatic dispute over this, I think that he is wrong, but he then has another option: Be the first President since Dwight Eisenhower not to attend the breakfast, saying that he will not break bread with them.
If he does neither, he is immoral, and he is a coward, and he does not deserve the public trust.
It is possible that Obama will take steps to prevent this, such as pressuring “The Family”, the secretive Christo-Fascist group that has organized the prayer breakfasts, to dis-invite them.
But if he sits down to break bread with people who are this deeply evil, he is giving his personal imprimatur to genocide, and anyone who supports gay rights should not support him.
When we look at Pat Robertson, and his delusional bits of wing-nut spew, it is important to note that he is, and remains a very significant figure in American politics:
You can sneer all you want at Pat Robertson. You can condemn him all you want. And I’ll join right in. He deserves everything you care to say about him, and much, much more. He is a seriously disturbed man.
But you dismiss and ignore him at your peril. Remember: this man used to call up the f@#&ing president of the United States. And he got through. And the president listened to him.
You ever had that kind of access to power? Got it now? Thought not. Me, neither. You got his hundreds of millions of dollars? Got millions of fans giving you hard-earned- bucks? Nope, I don’t have them either.
(emphasis original, @#& mine)
The fact that people do not take him seriously, even though he could, for many years, pick up the phone and in a few minutes have a conversation, or arrange a meeting, with the President United States is a not trivial thing.
People who should not be allowed to use a butter knife are achieved positions of outsize influence in the United States, and more often than not, these days at least, they speak to, and for, Republicans.
JPMorgan Allots $378,600 Per Investment Bank Worker:
JPMorgan Chase & Co., the second- largest U.S. bank, set aside $9.3 billion for compensation and benefits for investment-bank employees in 2009, enough to pay each worker in that unit $378,600.
The reserve is 33 percent of the investment bank’s revenue for the year, compared with 62 percent in 2008, New York-based JPMorgan said today on its Web site. That’s the lowest proportion allocated for pay since JPMorgan merged with Bank One Corp. in 2004.
You know, if shareholders had any real power to direct a company, the idea that 33% of revenue go to bonuses, much less 62%, would be a thing of the pass.
It is currently illegal for shareholders to vote on compensation plans. How about we change the law and make it legal.
He can always be counted on to say something hurtful and stupid, and this time, it’s the earthquake in Haiti.
He’s saying that the Haitians made a pact with the devil to drive out the French, and so they are cursed, which is why their country is poor, wracked with violence and instability, and struck by natural disasters.
What he is really saying, and I need to credit Juan Cole for this insight is that the Blacks of Haiti, much like the Blacks of New Orleans that he also attacked, are defying god because they are revolting against God’s will by refusing to be slaves.
It’s the Curse of Ham, a and comes from the story of Noah in Beresheit (Genesis) and was used by evil men who took up the role of clergy to justify slavery and the slave trade in pre Civil War days, because one of Ham’s sons Canaan, was cursed to be a slave.
It’s clear that in his heart of hearts Robertson believes this story: He thinks that black people in general are cursed because they have rejected the role that God has given them, that of a slave.
A transcript of what he says: “
And you know Christy, something happened a long time ago in Haiti and people might not want to talk about it. They were under the heel of the French, uh you know Napoleon the third and whatever. [Actually, you moron, it was Napoleon the first] And they got together and swore a pact to the devil. [No, local priests who practiced african religions issued a blessing] They said we will serve you if you’ll get us free from the French. True Story, and so the Devil said OK it’s a deal. And they kicked the French out. You know, the Haitians revolted and got themselves free. But ever since they’ve been cursed by one thing after the other desperately poor. That island is Hispaniola is one island. It’s cut down the middle. On one side is Haiti on the other side is the Dominican republic. Dominican Republic is prosperous, healthy, full of resorts, etc.. Haiti is in desperate poverty. Same island.
(H/t Username4242 at Daily Kos for the transcript)
He also studiously ignores the history there, where both the US and France conspired to keep their respective boots on their neck, starting with Thomas Jefferson, because as a slave holder, he was terrified at the prospect of a successful slave revolt.
To quote Christopher Hitchens, as much as it pains me, “If you gave him an enema you could bury him in a matchbox.”
The Republicans for Choice political action committee (PAC) collects money to support pro-choice Republicans running for office.
The odd part of this is that Republicans for Choice PAC doesn’t actually give much of the money to said candidates:
Since the PAC’s formation in 1990, documents show that Republicans for Choice has raised and spent more than $5.5 million. But a Center for Public Integrity analysis of the PAC’s more recent filings — along with data from CQ MoneyLine, which tracks political giving — reveals that over the past decade less than five percent of the committee’s spending has gone to political candidates, other political committees, or independent expenditures. Since 2005, just about one-half of one percent of the PAC’s nearly $1 million in spending has gone to federal or state campaigns, according to a review of records. By comparison, Federal Election Commission data show the average federal PAC in the recent 2007-2008 cycle dedicated about 35 percent of spending to contributions aiding federal candidates. A comparison to other PACs on both sides of the abortion debate shows that similar groups spend a much greater portion of their funds on candidates and campaigns.
Where did RFC’s money go? Much of the group’s spending has been for consulting companies owned by the PAC’s chairwoman, Ann E. W. Stone. Those firms — along with payments to reimburse Stone’s expenses for travel, entertainment, and automobile repairs — comprise more than two-thirds of RFC PAC’s expenditures since 2006. And hundreds of dollars more went to pay for Stone’s parking tickets.
This should not be a surprise.
For folks who follow Talking Points Memo, this sort of self dealing is rather common among Republican fund raising groups.
Linda Chavez has earned a healthy living doing this, as has a PAC dedicated to electing minority Republicans.
Basically, if you are donating to pro-life or minority Republicans through a 3rd party firm, you should assume that less than ½% makes it to candidates.
This business will get out of control. It will get out of control and we’ll be lucky to live through it. Cue Freddie Dalton Thompson from The Hunt for Red OctoberThe New York Times on banker compensation in these tough times:
Bank executives are grappling with a question that exasperates, even infuriates, many recession-weary Americans: Just how big should their paydays be? Despite calls for restraint from Washington and a chafed public, resurgent banks are preparing to pay out bonuses that rival those of the boom years. The haul, in cash and stock, will run into many billions of dollars.
Industry executives acknowledge that the numbers being tossed around — six-, seven- and even eight-figure sums for some chief executives and top producers — will probably stun the many Americans still hurting from the financial collapse and ensuing Great Recession.
It’s going to get out of control, as in some tea-bagging nut with a gun out of control, and I know that I won’t be sitting on the jury, because I could not bring myself to vote to convict.
Dick Lugar just called out Dick Cheney on his statements about terrorism:
Richard Lugar, the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, defended President Barack Obama’s handling of recent terrorism threats, taking issue with former Vice President Dick Cheney’s criticism.
“It’s unfair,” Lugar said in an interview for Bloomberg Television’s “Political Capital with Al Hunt,” airing this weekend. “I think the president is focused.”
It’s either a sign of the apocalypse, or Senator Lugar is thinking about switching parties.
After receiving a petition containing signatures from almost ¼ of the registered voters in Iceland, Iceland’s President Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson vetoed the bailout bill. It appears that the original version, which would saddle every man, woman, and child in Iceland with a debt of €12,000, about $17,000.
The original bill which passed contained a provision allowing for renegotiation on any unpaid amount after 2024, but the British and Dutch threw a fit over that, so, like the debt slaves that they are on the way to becoming, the government promptly caved, and the Althingi passed a bill without any real prospect of ever getting the bankers’ boots off of their necks.
It has the effect of requiring the bill to be passed by referendum, which is an uphill road, when you consider the fact that 62,000 people out of a population of about 320,000 just signed a petition asking for a veto.
The President notes in his official statement, (PDF) that he believes that it is the right of the people to make such a decision:
It is the cornerstone of the constitutional structure of the Republic of Iceland that the people are the supreme judge of the validity of the law. Under the Constitution, which was passed on the foundation of the Republic in 1944, and which over 90% of the nation approved in a referendum, the power which formerly rested with the Althingi and the King was transferred to the people. It is then the responsibility of the President of the Republic to ensure that the nation can exercise this right.
In the comments of Calculated Risk.s post on the matter, a commenter nailed the absurdity of the deal for the Icelandic people:
They lose their IMF bailout money I think.
Am I right that the proposed IMF bailout is about $6 billion? And the bill from Britain is apparently for 3.4 billion pounds, or about $5.5 billion?
Funny coincidence, that.
Yes, funny that: Because a bunch of people invested in the Internet branches of a local bank, accounts that had were never guaranteed by the Icelandic government, because of the high amount of interest paid, the Icelandic people are supposed to take a loan from the IMF to pay off the people who made risky investments to get high returns.
High returns=high risk. This is not even investing 101, it’s investing, “remedial classes, because you spent high school stoned.”
The investors knew what they were getting into.
Basically, this is the US paying AIG counterparties, but in an amount that comes to ½ of GDP.
Basically, the deal with Iceland was as follows: put your population in debt slavery, and in return, you get, an IMF loan to pay the morons who invested in a dodgy bank.
Then, the IMF will demand that Iceland:
In return, Iceland’s debt might not get downgraded to junk status.
I’m with Felix Salmon on standing up to bullies:
I’m quite ashamed of the bullying tactics being used here by the UK government. What happened was that an Icelandic bank, Landsbanki, started attracting UK depositors through its Icesave brand. When Landsbanki failed, the UK government bailed out those depositors in full. And now it wants that money back from the Icelandic government, which never guaranteed the Icesave deposits. If you thought the cod wars were bad, this is much worse.
(emphasis mine)
One of the flaws in the current finance system is that requirement that people be made whole when they chase high returns. It creates moral hazard, which leads to more stupidity.
Rinse, lather, repeat.
In an in your face to basic civil rights, justice, and American values, the Obama administration is halting transfer of Guantanamo detainees back to Yemen.
Remember, these are the ones who were investigated, and determined not to be terrorists.
So, innocence doesn’t matter, it’s politically inconvenient, so we’ll keep these guys in our Caribbean gulag.
