Category: Politics

12 December 2012, 10:54 PM

God Help Us, Berlusconi is Italy’s Best Hope

I know that this sounds like a joke, but I’m as serious as a heart attack.

The Euro (as it is currently structured, it should be called the Reichsmark, because it is structured by Germany to benefit it’s position as a predatory exporter) is of no real benefit to Italy, and Berlusconi is the only credible Italian political figure who is willing to say this:

The nation is richer than Germany in per capita terms, with some €9 trillion of private wealth. It has the biggest primary budget surplus in the G7 bloc. Its combined public and private debt is 265pc of GDP, lower than in France, Holland, the UK, the US or Japan.

It scores top of the International Monetary Fund’s index for “long-term debt sustainability” among key industrial nations, precisely because it reformed the pension structure long ago under Silvio Berlusconi.

“They have a vibrant export sector, and a primary surplus. If there is any country in EMU that would benefit from leaving the euro and restoring competitiveness, it is obviously Italy,” said Andrew Roberts from RBS.

“The numbers are staring them in the face. We think the story of 2013 is not about countries being forced to leave EMU but whether they choose to leave.”

A “game theory” study by Bank of America concluded that Italy would gain more than other EMU members from breaking free and restoring sovereign control over its policy levers.

………

Rome holds a clutch of trump cards. The one great obstacle is premier Mario Monti, installed at the head of a technocrat team in the November Putsch of 2011 by German Chancellor Angela Merkel and the European Central Bank – to the applause of Europe’s media and political class.

Mr Monti may be one of Europe’s great gentlemen but he is also a high priest of the EU Project and a key author of Italy’s euro membership. The sooner he goes, the sooner Italy can halt the slide into chronic depression.

The sooner that someone who counts (not Greece, not Portugal, and probably not Spain) declares that the Euro is a failure, and that it needs to be abandoned, the better it will be for most of the people in the Euro Zone.

The Eurobanksters will lose, and Angela Merkel will lose, but the entire Euro Zone, including Germany, is now in recession because of German competitive needs, and German mythology. (it wasn’t the hyperinflation that brought the Nazis to power, it was the hard money contractionary policies, policies that the Germans are demanding for the rest of the EZ that did)

Absent Germany withdrawing from the Euro, the currency is doomed, and the sooner that it is abandoned, the better.

12 December 2012, 7:38 PM

From the Department of, “Well Duh!”

Chris Van Hollen is suggesting that John Boehner is sandbagging the “fiscal cliff” negotiations until after his reelection as speaker, to avoid the possibility that his caucus will give his orange ass the boot for whatever deal he cut.

I’m not surprised. If he cuts a deal, he will have the Teabagger back benchers screaming for his head.

8 December 2012, 11:45 PM

Weldome Senator Clayton Bigsby*

Tim Scott(R) is favored to be appointed to replace Jim DeMint

So, JimDemint is resigning from the Senate in January to head the Heritage Foundation (read the link, it’s Charlie Pierce at his finest), and he is recommending that Tim Scott, who is arguably the nation’s most prominent African American teabagger,^† be appointed to replace him by governor Nikki Haley.

My guess is that he realized that he is widely loathed by his fellow Republicans, he has been intimately involved in primary challenges against members of his party, and that it is unlikely that he would be in the majority, or that he would get a leadership position, and the presidency of the Heritage Foundation pays a lot more than being a Senator.

In my heart of hearts though, I’m hoping that it’s a gay sex prostitution scandal that got him to leave the Senate, but if wishes were horses, beggars would ride.

^*Clayton Bigsby is a character from Chapelle’s Show. He is a blind black man who is a white supremacist because he does not know that he is black.
^†Yes, the role of “Nation’s most prominent African American teabagger” is not a particularly crowded field.

7 December 2012, 6:24 PM

Obama Actually Takes a Stand on Michigan

Unlike his hands off position in Wisconsin, Obama has actually come out against the Koch suckers’ right to work law in Michigan:

Union leaders warned that, if organized labor can be so battered in the union heartland of Michigan, it can—and may—be attacked anywhere. And the national significance of the move was highlighted by a statement from the Obama White House, which said:

President Obama has long opposed so-called “right-to-work” laws and he continues to oppose them now. The President believes our economy is stronger when workers get good wages and good benefits, and he opposes attempts to roll back their rights. Michigan—and its workers’ role in the revival of the US automobile industry—is a prime example of how unions have helped build a strong middle class and a strong American economy.

The problem is that following the 2010 debacle, Michigan is so f%$#ing Gerrymandered it’s not funny.

Another problem is that if there is a wave election that gives Democrats back control, the power brokers will ensure that too many of the Democrats will be faux Dems, and so repealing this will be put on the back burner.

6 December 2012, 11:00 PM

This is corrupt, and It Would Be a Political Winner for Republicans, and I Want Them to Pursue This

Naked Capitalism has been writing for some time about how the SEC’s chief of enforcement, Robert Khuzam, has been hostile to the idea of actual enforcement, particularly with regards to reports from whistle blowers, but the latest case is indisputably corrupt:

Two days ago, we said it was time to fire the SEC’s chief of enforcement Robert Khuzami, who has not provided the tough policing warranted by the biggest financial crisis in the agency’s history. Our call was based on compelling evidence of failure. Specifically, a year and a half after Dodd Frank created a $450 million whistleblower fund, which Khuzami confirmed had produced hundreds of high quality leads, the agency had taken only one referral far enough to merit a payout, that of a measley $50,000. We stressed that this was an astonishing lapse:

… whistleblowers are insiders and therefore should in many cases have access to the sort of internal documents that would serve to substantiate conduct and save the SEC a ton of time. In other words, this should be a prime, potentially its best, source of leads, since the SEC would be further along in case development if any of these tips had meat (ie, both damning info and on target with a clear violation).

We didn’t anticipate that the story of Khuzami’s negligence would blow so big so quickly. Today, the Financial Times reported that three separate whistleblowers charged that Deutsche Bank had mismarked up to $12 billion in exposures to make it look healthier in 2008 and 2009 than it was, yet the agency had not acted on these allegations. And this level of window dressing most assuredly would make a difference.
………

Khuzami’s position is hopelessly conflicted. He was general counsel for the Americas for Deutsche from 2004 to 2009, so this behavior took place on his watch. Although he has recused himself from this probe, that’s inadequate. Recusal does not work when the people working on the matter in the end have the party with the conflict as their boss. They can’t pursue any real dirt that could implicate him without hurting themselves. If it came to naught, they’d still fear the risk of reprisal if he survived. And if he were forced to leave, they’d be faced with a new boss who might not be at all to their liking.

The only way to have an effective investigation is either to have Khuzami resign or to have the matter handed off to a completely independent firm (and even that’s a stretch, both from the agency side, and from the dearth of firms with decent securities law expertise that would be willing to face off against a major bank. Just as with the bankruptcy bar, you either work for the banks [the creditors] or against them [for the debtors]). It’s also a wee bit too cozy that Deutsche’s current general counsel is also a former SEC head of enforcement. And KPMG, the accountant that blessed all this highly dubious financial footwork, and Fried Frank, which led an investigation initiated by Deutsche and apparently found nothing much wrong, also don’t come out looking very good.

When you look Republican investigations of alleged Obama corruption, what is clear is that they are trying to gin up a false bullsh%$ like Benghazi and “Fast and Furious”.

This one is real, and it’s an accusation that would serve to benefit the Republicans politically, and unlike the investigatory theater that Darryl Issa favors.

Additionally, such an investigation might lead the white house to get tougher with the banksters, because it is clear that one of the administration’s conceits, notwithstanding the rapidly spinning revolving door (Elizabeth Fowler anyone?), is that they are a model of probity, and this, along with the political consequences, might produce some meaningful action.

6 December 2012, 8:06 PM

This is About a Political Rear Guard Action

There is a context to the Republican moves in Michigan to pass a right to work law.

When you see increasing levels of rejection by the electorate, along with an increasingly radical and delusional base pushing in the other direction, your only alternative is to direct your actions toward political advantage by things like Gerrymandering, and going after your opponents’ power base, and you dry to prevent them from voting.

That’s why you see Republicans going after labor unions, plaintiff’s lawyers, and actively suppressing voter turnout.

Well, there’s that, there’s the fact that they, as Lee Atwater said, scream N***er, N***er, N***er, albeit with increasingly sophisticated code words.

If this passes, and it almost certainly will, then when the Democrats get power back in Michigan, repealing this is the first order of business.

6 December 2012, 7:21 PM

I Love Ed Asner*

Ed Asner narrated a video for the California Federation of Teachers, which, among its images, had the 1% pissing on the rest of us.

Well, professional idiot Sean Hannity took offense, and he sent a producer to ambush interview Mr. Asner, who then offered to demonstrate the principal by pissing on the producer ::

Emmy Award-winning The Mary Tyler Show actor Ed Asner recently asked a Fox News producer if he could “piss on” him after he was confronted about a California Federation of Teachers video that showed cartoon rich people urinating on poor people.

Fox News host Sean Hannity and other conservative pundits first began attacking Asner on Tuesday after the animated ad that he narrated appeared on the federation’s website to explain how rich people used tax evasion, tax loopholes and tax cuts to become even richer.

On Wednesday, Hannity announced that he had sent an ambush producer out to confront the “left-wing Hollywood actor” outside his job at a New York City theater over the “disgusting hit piece.”

“I don’t remember a thing I said on it or a word I said on it,” Asner told the producer. “But I agreed to do it for California teachers. I approve this message.”

“There’s a part of it where talking about things trickling down and they have like rich people peeing on poor people,” the producer explained.

“How disgusting,” the actor snarked. “It should be reversed.”

“So you don’t remember that?” the producer pressed.

“Do you have any money?” Asner later asked.

“Ah, yeah,” the producer replied.

“Can I piss on you?” the actor quipped.

Heh.

H/t DC at the Stellar Parthenon BBS.

^*In a 110% purely heterosexual kind of way, of course, as the General would say.

5 December 2012, 9:00 PM

I am in the Wrong Line of Work

Dick Armey just got an $8 million golden handshake from FreedomWorks:

Dick Armey left the deep-pocketed tea party group he helped build over a clash with a top lieutenant who Armey and others in the organization believed was using the group’s resources to pad his pockets, POLITICO has learned.

Armey received an $8 million buyout to step down as chairman of FreedomWorks at the end of last month, but the dispute between him and the group’s president, Matt Kibbe, is still straining the organization.

An $8 f%$#ing million severance?

I need to become a conservative Republican rat f%$#er.

The money might be worth my immortal soul.

5 December 2012, 8:51 PM

The Goal is Not Recovery, It’s the Dismantling of the Social Safety State

That’s what the right wing push for austerity is all about.

Case in point, the chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne, who is saying that since austerity is further depressing the British economy, it has become necessary extend austerity until at least 2018:

Britons, many already weary of government austerity budgets that some economists say are impeding the country’s recovery, are going to have to wait even longer for relief.

The architect of the austerity program, George Osborne, the chancellor of the Exchequer, told Parliament on Wednesday that the government had missed one of its self-imposed debt-cutting goals and would have to extend the belt-tightening into 2018, a year longer than previously promised.

Although Mr. Osborne maintained that the debt reduction plan was still on track, his presentation drew heckling and laughter from some opposition lawmakers, particularly after he argued that new tax measures would show that “we’re all in this together.”

The next general election in Britain will take place in 2015, well before the end of austerity measures that have included cuts in welfare services and the elimination of tens of thousands of public sector jobs.

On Wednesday, the Office for Budget Responsibility, a nonpartisan body that is monitoring the economy, said it now expected full-year data to show that the economy shrank 0.1 percent this year, instead of growing 0.8 percent, as the office had previously forecast.

It also said the economy would grow 1.2 percent next year as opposed to the 2 percent predicted earlier.

“It’s a hard road but we are getting there,” Mr. Osborne told Parliament. “Britain is on the right track. Turning back now would be a disaster.”

The evidence is clear: Austerity in a depressed economy further depresses the economy, and reduces tax revenues.

Austerity is not about creating growth, nor is it about reducing deficits. It is merely camouflage for an assault on social insurance.

5 December 2012, 7:36 PM

Montgomery Burns Explains the Fiscal Cliff

4 December 2012, 9:43 PM

They’ve Lost the F%$#ing Heritage Foundation

Yesterday, I mentioned that the Republican budget proposals were fact free, well, it appears that people at the right wing Heritage Foundation agree with me:

The House Republican leadership has offered a substantive counteroffer to President Obama’s frivolous fiscal cliff proposal of last week. At first blush, it appears little more than categorical, pre-emptive capitulation.

To be fair, the details of the Republican proposal are extraordinarily vague. Nor is much clarity or comfort gained from the three-page accompanying letter sent to the President and signed by Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA), House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI), and three other senior members of the House Republican leadership.

Much can and likely will come out in the days ahead clarifying what a few figures and labels on a single sheet of paper mean. One can only hope the additional clarity substantially improves the picture. However, it is very difficult to be hopeful.

That’s gonna leave a mark.

Normally, I think that the Heritage foundation is full of crap.

Even amongst the right wing think tanks, it’s hacktacular.

Full disclosure, a friend of mine was fired by the Heritage Foundation because she got cancer, so I am not favorably inclined toward these guys.

H/t Talking Points Memo.

3 December 2012, 10:19 PM

I Don’t Think that I Often Say This, But ………

Props to NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg:

Joe Baca never saw it coming, and neither did Gloria Negrete McLeod.

But as state Sen. Negrete McLeod replaces Baca in Congress, the dueling San Bernardino County Democrats witnessed first hand the beginnings of a change in gun politics, courtesy of billionaire New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

No doubt the strongest gun control advocate on Forbes’ list of the fabulously rich, Bloomberg seized an opportunity to unseat Baca, a pro-gun Democrat, by spending $3.3 million on television and mail attacks. Given his estimated $25 billion fortune, $3.3 million is couch cushion change. But it was three times the sum Baca and Negrete McLeod raised between them. By homing in on a loyal National Rifle Association politician, Bloomberg altered a long-standing element of American politics.

There’s more to this than just guns, McLeod is fairly pro-gun as well, and there is an important bit a few ‘graphs down, that the NRA is basically a partisan organization, where it’s “my cold dead fingers” philosophy now takes a back seat to party:

It skipped Baca’s race, a telling omission. If any candidate warranted NRA support, Baca was that man. In his 20 years in Sacramento and in Washington, Baca rarely if ever wavered from National Rifle Association orthodoxy. There were times when he was the only Democrat who sided with the NRA.

“Joe was a very good friend of the NRA’s,” recalled Steve Helsley, the NRA’s California lobbyist when Baca was in the Legislature.

Baca sought the NRA’s endorsement this year, but said the NRA turned him down because he failed to join Republicans who voted to sanction Attorney General Eric Holder for the ATF’s bollixed Fast and Furious gun investigation, and because he supported Obama’s nomination of Sonia Sotomayor as U.S. Supreme Court justice.

I’m not unhappy about the results. Baca was a Blue Dog, and he had a long history of directing his campaign funds and those of the House Hispanic Caucus for the benefit of his relatives, and then there is the whole thing of his calling Rep. Loretta Sanchez a “whore” (though not to her face) when she confronted him on this and other irregularities.

Here’s what Blue Dogs and New Dems should take away from this whole story: If you support lax gun ownership rules, good for you, but do not expect the NRA to do anything, even something as minor as an endorsement when you are running against another Democrat.

They are not your political ally.

3 December 2012, 9:46 PM

Obama Has Apparently Switched to a High Fiber Cereal

I’m shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on here!

Because he has stopped negotiating with himself, and he is simply putting forward his favored solution to Republicans, and demanding proposals from them:

Amid demands from Republicans that President Obama propose detailed new spending cuts to avert the year-end fiscal crisis, his answer boils down to this: you first.

Mr. Obama, scarred by failed negotiations in his first term and emboldened by a clear if close election to a second, has emerged as a different kind of negotiator in the past week or two, sticking to the liberal line and frustrating Republicans on the other side of the bargaining table.

Disciplined and unyielding, he argues for raising taxes on the wealthy while offering nothing new to rein in spending and overhaul entitlement programs beyond what was on the table last year. Until Republicans offer their own new plan, Mr. Obama will not alter his. In effect, he is trying to leverage what he claims as an election mandate to force Republicans to take ownership of the difficult choices ahead.

His approach is born of painful experience. In his first four years in office, Mr. Obama has repeatedly offered what he considered compromises on stimulus spending, health care and deficit reduction to Republicans, who either rejected them as inadequate or pocketed them and insisted on more. Republicans argued that Mr. Obama never made serious efforts at compromise and instead lectured them about what they ought to want rather than listening to what they did want.

So the Republicans have been shocked, that ~~gambling is going on~~ he’s decided to stop conceding at the start of talks.

BTW, the Republicans have now to been forced to make a ~~real~~ in response, only it’s completely number and specifics free. Yes, the propose raising medicare age to 67, which won’t save any money, because the 65-67 year old’s will need insurance subsidies, unspecified loophole closing (gee, they don’t want to be the first ones to propose cutting the mortgage deduction?):

The offer makes no mention of how to handle a looming battle over the federal debt limit, which will soon need to raised above $16.4 trillion. Nor does the offer provide any suggestions for how to carry out the debt-reduction framework and avoid the fiscal cliff. GOP aides said those details are open to negotiation.

“There are multiple ways to get this done,” said one senior GOP aide who briefed reporters on the condition of anonymity. “The details need to be filled in later.”

(emphasis mine)

The Republicans want to make the Democrats propose specific cuts, and then bludgeon them them with that in 2014.

Do not expect the GOP to bargain in good faith, they are hostage takers, and will be for the foreseeable future.

3 December 2012, 7:55 PM

No Justice No Peace — Know Justice Know Peace

Seriously, when a cop is convicted of torture, a pardon is not a good way to resolve the issue:

More than 200 judges across Spain have come out publicly to manifest their anger with the Popular Party (PP) government over its decision to pardon four Catalan police officers who were found guilty of torturing a man who they mistakenly believed was an assailant.

“The government’s decision is an improper one in a democracy; illegitimate and unethical. For that reason, we cannot just stand back and not raise our voices against the abuses committed in the right to pardon and warn of their effects, which are devastating,” reads a statement released by the judges.

Among those who signed the document are Supreme Court Justices Perfecto Andrés and Joaquín Giménez, and a senior member of the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ), Margarita Robles.

The four members of the Mossos d’Esquadra were convicted and sentenced in 2008 for torturing the suspect they had arrested. Their convictions had been upheld by the Supreme Court.

………

In February, the Cabinet reduced their sentences to two years and gave them suspensions from the force rather than banning them for life as the court had ruled. It was a decision designed to prevent any of the four from serving time; in Spain jail terms of two years or less handed down to first-time offenders are habitually converted into suspended sentences.

A Barcelona provincial court, which advised the government that it was against the partial pardons, decided that the four officers must serve the remainder of their time in prison. In response the Cabinet last week decided on full pardons and agreed to give them fines.

So, these guys get to be cops again in 2 years.

You just know that they will have enthusiastic support of their fellow officers, so being back on the beat (pun not intended) is highly likely.

This sort of sh%$, abusive police officers and the craven politicians who support them in order to appear “tough on crime” is why you need a strong constitution and a strong judiciary.

You cannot ever trust the police to protect your rights as a citizen.

3 December 2012, 7:32 PM

This Was Foreseeable

In response to the PA seeking, and getting, non-member state status granted by the UN General Assembly, Israel has announced plans to expand settlements around Jerusalem:

Israel is moving forward with development of Jewish settlements in a contentious area east of Jerusalem, defying the United States by advancing a project that has long been condemned by Washington as effectively dooming any prospect of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

A day after the United Nations General Assembly voted overwhelmingly to upgrade the status of the Palestinians, a senior Israeli official said the government would pursue “preliminary zoning and planning preparations” for a development that would separate the West Bank cities of Ramallah and Bethlehem from Jerusalem. If such a project were to go beyond blueprints, it could prevent the creation of a viable, contiguous Palestinian state.

The development, in an open, mostly empty area known as E1, would connect the large settlement town of Maale Adumim to Jerusalem. Israeli officials also authorized construction of 3,000 housing units in parts of East Jerusalem and the West Bank.

The timing of the twin actions seemed aimed at punishing the Palestinians for their United Nations bid, and appeared to show that hard-liners in the government had prevailed after days of debate over how to respond. That represented a surprising turnaround, after a growing sense that Israeli leaders had acceded to pressure from Washington not to react quickly or harshly.

A UN General Assembly resolution, and $12.75, will get you a Starbucks latte, so the value to the Palestinian Authority is primarily as an tool for its internal struggle with Hamas, and as way to position itself in a slightly more favorable footing in negotiations with Israel.

As to the Israeli plans, it’s value to Netanyahu and the Likud government is as a tool for political advantage against Kadima or Labour in elections, and as as way to position itself in a slightly more favorable footing in negotiations with the PA.

On the plus side, neither action involves either side lobbing rockets at each other.

28 November 2012, 12:25 AM

Who Says that Irony is Dead?

Donald Trump is suggesting that Republicans need to be more appealing to minorities.

Jeebus. Guy did everything but use the “N-word” to describe Barack Obama.

26 November 2012, 7:11 PM

Signs of the Apocalypse

The fact that I am actually approvingly quoting American Conservative magazine.

Specifically, I am quoting an article by Bruce Bartlett, in which he excoriates the modern Republican Party for going completely bat sh%$ insane:

………

A couple of weeks before the 2004 election, Suskind wrote a long article for the New York Times Magazine that quoted some of my comments to him that were highly critical of Bush and the drift of Republican policy. The article is best remembered for his quote from an anonymous White House official dismissing critics like me for being “the reality-based community.”

The day after the article appeared, my boss called to chew me out, saying that Karl Rove had called him personally to complain about it. I promised to be more circumspect in the future.

Interestingly, a couple of days after the Suskind article appeared, I happened to be at a reception for some right-wing organization that many of my think tank friends were also attending. I assumed I would get a lot of grief for my comments in the Suskind article and was surprised when there was none at all.

Finally, I started asking people about it. Not one person had read it or cared in the slightest what the New York Times had to say about anything. They all viewed it as having as much credibility as Pravda and a similar political philosophy as well. Some were indignant that I would even suspect them of reading a left-wing rag such as the New York Times.

I was flabbergasted. Until that moment I had not realized how closed the right-wing mind had become. Even assuming that my friends’ view of the Times’ philosophy was correct, which it most certainly was not, why would they not want to know what their enemy was thinking? This was my first exposure to what has been called “epistemic closure” among conservatives—living in their own bubble where nonsensical ideas circulate with no contradiction.

………

I later learned that the order to ignore me extended throughout Rupert Murdoch’s empire. For example, I stopped being quoted in the Wall Street Journal.* Awhile back, a reporter who left the Journal confirmed to me that the paper had given her orders not to mention me. Other dissident conservatives, such as David Frum and Andrew Sullivan, have told me that they are banned from Fox as well. More epistemic closure.

………

I hit upon the idea of ignoring the academic journals and looking instead at what economists like John Maynard Keynes, Irving Fisher, and others said in newspaper interviews and articles for popular publications. Recently computerized databases made such investigation far easier than it previously had been.

After careful research along these lines, I came to the annoying conclusion that Keynes had been 100 percent right in the 1930s. Previously, I had thought the opposite. But facts were facts and there was no denying my conclusion. It didn’t affect the argument in my book, which was only about the rise and fall of ideas. The fact that Keynesian ideas were correct as well as popular simply made my thesis stronger.

………

For the record, no one has been more correct in his analysis and prescriptions for the economy’s problems than Paul Krugman. The blind hatred for him on the right simply pushed me further away from my old allies and comrades.

………

For the record, no one has been more correct in his analysis and prescriptions for the economy’s problems than Paul Krugman. The blind hatred for him on the right simply pushed me further away from my old allies and comrades.

This is a particularly deep vein of schadenfreude.

25 November 2012, 11:48 PM

Word!

Grace under pressure

In protest of increasing management interference in the news (primarily of the right wing variety) two co-anchors on stations WVII and WFVX in Bangor, Maine, announced their resignations on the air, and later cited excessive management interference in the news process:

Citing a longstanding battle with upper management over journalistic practices at their Bangor TV stations, news co-anchors Cindy Michaels and Tony Consiglio announced their resignations at the end of Tuesday’s 6 p.m. newscast.

Michaels and Consiglio, who have a combined 12½ years’ service at WVII (Channel 7) and sister station WFVX (Channel 22), shocked staff members and viewers with their joint resignations Tuesday evening.

“I just wanted to know that I was doing the best job I could and was being honest and ethical as a journalist, and I thought there were times when I wasn’t able to do that,” said Consiglio, a northeastern Connecticut native who broke in with WVII as a sports reporter in April 2006.

Not everyone was shocked by the on-air resignations.

“No, that was unfortunate, but not unexpected,” said Mike Palmer, WVII/WFVX vice president and general manager. “We’ll hire experienced people to fill these positions sooner rather than later.”

Neither reporter had told anyone of their decisions before Tuesday’s newscast.

“We figured if we had tendered our resignations off the air, we would not have been allowed to say goodbye to the community on the air and that was really important for us to do that,” said Michaels, the station’s news director, who has spent six of her 15 years in Bangor’s radio and TV market at WVII.

Both Michaels, 46, and Consiglio, 28, said frustration over the way they were allowed or told to do their jobs — something that has been steadily mounting for the last four years — became too much for them.

For what it’s worth, Mike Palmer, the aforementioned general manager, got some national ink in 2006, when he issued an edict forbidding any coverage of anthropogenic climate change until, “Bar Harbor is underwater.”

The fact that they surprised management by quitting on the air is telling. They knew that the could not trust them.

Big surprise that one of the stations is a Fox affiliate.

H/t A Siegel at the big orange Borg.

19 November 2012, 12:12 AM

There is a Difference Between a Conservative Democrat and a Disloyal Democrat

That’s Gotta Leavea Mark!

Andrew Cuomo, governor of New York, and on the list for the 2016 nominee, appears to have been actively working to maintain a Republican majority in the state senate:

IIf the New York state Senate remains controlled by the Republican Party, it won’t be because of the voters. Democrats have 30 seats, with 32 required for a majority. They’re also ahead in two races currently being recounted. Simcha Felder, who won a Senate seat on the Democratic and Conservative Party lines in Brooklyn, has already announced that he will caucus with the Republicans. If the Democrats end up with a majority, there is a good chance a bunch of conservative Democrats will switch parties to ensure that the GOP retains control. One guy who’s staying conspicuously out of the fight: Democratic governor and 2016 presidential contender Andrew Cuomo.

………

But it’s not just that Cuomo’s not trying to help his party win a majority that voters actually voted for. He has at times actively hindered their chances. Cuomo signed off on gerrymandered state Senate districts and did not demand independent, nonpartisan redrawing. In doing so he intended to preserve the status quo — Republicans in charge of the state Senate, Democrats in charge of the more representative assembly — but voters in New York pretty clearly decided that they preferred Democrats in charge of both houses, even with districts drawn specifically to make that nearly impossible.

………

And if Republicans get their majority, with the tacit support of Cuomo, the governor will have once again shown that he is not the progressive figure he will likely try to sell himself as if he runs for president. His tenure so far has been marked by flashy liberal victories on issues like gay marriage, along with a quietly conservative economic agenda: A property tax cap, total neglect of mass transit, and (partial) support for fracking. Even on economic issues where Cuomo has more liberal priorities, he rarely pushes his Republican friends particularly hard. (A Republican-controlled state Senate will almost certainly block a minimum wage increase Cuomo ostensibly supports.) There’s a reason, in other words, that the National Review loves him.

You can also see Chris Hays unload a case of whup ass on him as well. (see vid)

Let’s be clear here: In every case where Andrew Cuomo had to make a decision regarding the state senate, that decision cut to favor Republican control of the state senate to the maximum degree that political realities make it possible.

If there is a lesson to the Democratic party regarding the career of Joe Lieberman, it is that there is a difference between a conservative Democrat and a disloyal one.

Cuomo seems to be inclined toward the latter.

I don’t know who is going to be the Democratic nominee in 4 years, but I really hope that it is not him.

H/t Crooks and Liars.