Category: Stupid

Ross Douthat is a F$#@ing Moron

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So, the latest New York Times OP/ED page conservative affirmative action case has his debut editorial for the paper, and what is his trenchant analysis?

It’s that the Republicans should have nominated Richard Milhaus Cheney as their presidential nominee in 2008.

I guess that’s because Cheney is such a photogenic and friendly dude, whether talking about his penis (top picture), or simply snarling at the American public (bottom).

Of course this is not really what the author believes. He wanted Cheney to run because he would have been beaten like a baby seal while showing how the right wing orthodoxy needs to be repackaged: It’s simply link bait, as Froomkin notes.

He wants people to read him, so Douthat says something outrageous, and finishes with, “And when he went down to a landslide loss, the conservative movement might – might! – have been jolted into the kind of rethinking that’s necessary if it hopes to regain power.”

No. Simply put, he is being a tool to get buzz, and it increasingly appears that the Republican Neocons are simply some sort of truly subversive performance art group.

I miss William Safire, who while right wing, had a brain, and could actually string together words in an attractive way.

Between Tierney, Kristol, and now Douthat, it appears that the sure sign that you are really, really, stupid is getting a regular Times OP/ED slot.

Yes, I know, I am really describing him being an asshole, not stupid, but his argument boils down to, “We should have nominated Dick Cheney, and we would have lost much better.”

That’s Doug “The Stupidest Motherf^%$er on the Planet” Feith stupid, and the New York Times already has a surfeit of stupid among their regular columnists, with Maureen Dowd, who covers politics like she is a junior high schooler dissing a classmates choice in shoes.

Still it appears that but it appears that Andrew Rosenthal, the Editorial Page Editor, feels that they need some more stupid.

Harman Update: The CIA is Really the Gang That Cannot Shoot Straight

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As I’ve said before, I’m glad that Harman is not House Intel Chairman, but tht latest from Jeff Stein, who broke the story, is a classic case of the CIA screwing itself up, and f%$#ing itself over:

Frustrated and angry at Gonzales for aborting the investigation, intelligence officials let Pelosi know about the wiretap and its contents, according to the three former national security officials.

‘She knew. We made sure she knew,’ said one of the former officials, chuckling.

The officials would discuss the matter only on terms of anonymity, because even the existence of the wiretap remains classified.

These guys want to be unshackled from the Frank Church era restrictions, and they pull crap like this.

You are going to have Congressional committees investigating you in a way that is far less pleasant than an unlubed proctology exam now, and you are to blame for this.

Morons….We should have outsourced you lot’s job to the ex-KGB when the wall came down.

I Want What They Are Smoking

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IHS Global Insight is saying that the nation’s housing market is undervalued:

A new report released today by IHS Global Insight and PNC Financial Services Group revealed that the nation’s housing market as a whole is “slightly undervalued,” but said there was no sign of a bottom.

The so-called “House Prices in America” fourth quarter update found that home prices had fallen a collective 9.9 percent from their 2007 peak, although much more in sand states like California and Florida.

About the only thing that I can figure is that they are thinking that the dollar figures are Zimbabwean dollars of something.

Housing is still well above historical trends in terms of absolute price, rent/own ratio, and relative to wages.

What is Wrong with the Village:

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Dana Perino is joining Mark Penn’s PR firm, Burson-Marsteller:

Mr. Penn, the firm’s CEO, said Ms. Perino’s experiences in Mr. Bush’s second term make her a valuable addition to the team of battle-tested public-relations veterans he is assembling. Mr. Penn writes a “Microtrends” column for The Wall Street Journal Online.

Bull. She was clubbed daily like a baby seal.

This is all about the incestuous ways in Washington, DC, and I can think of no better illustration of why the town needs a good muck-raking prosecutor to clean it out.

Adventures in Economic Journamalism

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In this case, it’s Douglas McIntyre of Time Magazine, who looks at a positive quarterly report from Wells Fargo, so he looks at the big sh$&pile, and thinks that there is a pony in there,thus declaring that the banking crisis to be over.

Not unsurprisingly, this ignores the the backdoor bailout through AIG, the fact Wells is deriving profits from a special tax loophole that allows it to write off WaMu’s old losses, that Wells is rather healthy by the standards of the big banks, and the fact that their worthless assets effect solvency, not quarterly profit statements.

Making a quarterly profit is easy for a bank that is not writing down bad loans as it is supposed to.

Posted via mobile phone.

Stupid Senator Tricks

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For some reason, it appears that Senator Richard Shelby (R-AL) seems to be overrepresented in such metrics.

In this case, he has a hold on Ashton Carter to become the next Pentagon acquisition chief, because, wait for it, he has not received a guarantee from SecDef Robert Gates that the he would, “make the tanker decision on best-value grounds.”

He is concerned that Airbus, which would assemble the aircraft in his state, will somehow be cheated out of the contract.

Ummm…The Airbus A-330 won the contract because it had a larger, more capable aircraft that could be delivered sooner, and had a fly-away cost roughly equal to the Boeing 767.

This is not an issue. The issue is your colleague in the House and Senate, doing the same work for Boeing that you are doing for EADS, will attempt to sabotage the process and get the contract awarded to the Seattle aircraft manufacturer on political grounds.

You do not need a guarantee from Gates or Carter, you need it from your fellow legislators.

Orwell Alive and Well in the Obama Whitehouse

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One of the things that concerns me the most is Obama’s comfort in continuing to support Bush’s assault on basic procedural civil rights because they serve to reinforce the power of what is now his office.

Case in point, the Pentagon’s “privilege review team”, which is now considering charges against a victim of the torture protocols created by the Bush Administration.

What they posted was a cover sheet naming the case, and quoting unclassified portions of a UK court ruling saying that it was up to the US to release it, followed by a version redacted by said privilege review team”, which blacked out everything but the title of their report, which is clearly stamped “unclassified”:

The privilege team argue that by releasing the redacted memo Reprieve has breached the rules that govern Guantánamo lawyers and have made a complaint to the court of “unprofessional conduct”.

Stafford Smith described their actions as intimidation, saying the complaint “doesn’t even specify the rule supposedly breached”.

So, according to someone at the Pentagon, by sending an unclassified document to the president of the United States of America, they are in violation of regulations, and could face as much as 6 months in jail.

Bush and His Evil Minions&trade Really Did Destroy Everything that They Touched

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In this case, it’s 401(k) plans that they destroyed, by issuing regulations on automatically subscribed employees that directed them to riskier investments:

Shortly before the first signs of the stock market collapse, the Bush administration made a crucial decision that has propelled an estimated one to two million workers into stock-heavy retirement funds.

Many of the funds in which workers were automatically enrolled dropped more than 25 percent last year, while a more conservative investment strategy rejected by the Bush administration would have resulted in a gain of 4.7 percent.

The administration’s decisions came in response to a congressional mandate to encourage more workers to participate in company-sponsored retirement savings plans. The Bush administration came up with a rule that enabled businesses to automatically enroll their workers in tax-free 401(k) retirement plans.

If the workers failed to specify how they wanted their money invested, the company would be required by law to place their retirement money in investment funds that, for the most part, relied heavily on stocks. The administration specifically rejected calls for a more conservative investment option.

You know, even a stopped clock is right twice a day, but that’s better than George Walker Bush.

Truth be told, they had a reason for this: They were desperately trying to get money to the stock market, in order to prop up prices in preparation for the election, so it’s more corrupt than stupid.

Banks Are Already Gaming Geithner’s Bad Bank Plan

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Gee, this is a surprise, banks are looking to buy each others’ mortgage backed securities, essentially swapping their own crap for someone else’s crap plus a 50+% subsidy.

For once, I find a Republican who has a clue

Spencer Bachus, the top Republican on the House financial services committee, vowed after being told of the plans by the FT to introduce legislation to stop financial institutions ”gaming the system to reap taxpayer-subsidized windfalls”.

Mr Bachus added it would mark ”a new level of absurdity” if financial institutions were ”colluding to swap assets at inflated prices using taxpayers’ dollars.”

I have to say, in reviewing Geithner’s history, I do not believe that this was an error, but rather something that he intended.

I believe Geithner is Wall Streets bitch, and that this is just another instance when he strapped on the knee pads.

File Under: I Used to Be Disgusted, Now I Try to Be Amused

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It appears that the Treasury Department is stonewalling the body charged with monitoring the various bank bailouts.

But “without a clearer explanation” about parts of the program, “it is not possible to exercise meaningful oversight over Treasury’s actions,” said Elizabeth Warren, a Harvard Law School professor who leads a special congressional oversight panel monitoring the TARP program. Her comments came in a Senate Finance Committee hearing on the bailout program.

Noting that TARP passed Congress six months ago, Warren said that her group has repeatedly called on the Treasury Department to provide a clear strategy for the program — and that “the absence of such a vision hampers effective oversight.”

Dr. Warren, this is not a but, it’s a feature.

Geithner is a former Federal Reserve Bank of New York president. Opacity and secrecy are how they think that it’s supposed to work.

That’s the whole idea behind the Federal Reserve system.

Why Cap and Trade Sucks

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Because if there is a sign that a regulatory strategy is ill conceived, it is when you end up paying farmers not to grow crops, and this appears to be one of the new cash crops for the American farmers.

This is a fraud foisted on the American consumer and the environment, much like the construction of unneeded hydroelectric plants in China for carbon credits on the European cap and trade system is a fraud on the European consumer and the environment.

The solution, which is cheaper for the consumer, and keeps the Wall Street types from gaming the system, is the straight carbon tax.

Jake DeSantis, Go Cheney Yourself

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Mr. Desantis used to work for AIG, but quit, and published his letter or resignation in the New York Times.

So, why am I down on the gentleman? Because anyone who writes such a self-important letter, then goes about having it published in the most influential publication in the United States, and wants us to feel sorry for him, despite the fact that, “I received a payment from A.I.G. amounting to $742,006.40, after taxes,” something in the range of $1.2 million pre-tax, is simply an asshole.

Whiners

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Specifically the New York Times reporters covering the press conference:

This was Mr. Obama as more enervating than energizing, a reminder of the way he could be in his early days as a presidential candidate, before he became defined by rapturous crowds.

Hmmm…I wonder why they are so down on the press conference>

He showed his usual comfort with a wide array of subjects, even as he excluded the nation’s big newspapers from the questioning in favor of a more eclectic mix.

Oh my God! He did not ask a New York Times reporter a question. We are masters of the universe! How dare he!

What a bunch of self absorbed pratts.